Science and technology

Australia should phase out advertising for online gambling in three years, a parliamentary committee of inquiry recommended on Wednesday as it looked to limit the “havoc” it caused in one of the world’s biggest betting market. The committee made 31 recommendations on how online gambling, which it said was changing the culture of sport, should be regulated and how Australians struggling with addiction should be supported. Australians outspend the citizens of every other country on online gambling, Peta Murphy, chair of the committee said in the report titled “You win some, you lose more”. “This is wreaking havoc in our communities,” Murphy said. Murphy said online gambling companies advertise deliberately and strategically alongside sport, which has normalised it as fun and harmless and socialble activity. A generation of young Australians views gambling and sport as inextricably linked, Murphy said, adding that it was changing the culture of sport. “Australia would be diminished

Baidu, China’s leading search engine provider, said the latest iteration of its Ernie AI model had surpassed the widely popular ChatGPT on multiple key metrics. Baidu said in a statement on Tuesday that Ernie 3.5, the latest version of its Ernie AI model, had surpassed “ChatGPT in comprehensive ability scores” and outperformed “GPT-4 in several Chinese capabilities”. The Beijing-based company cited a test that the state newspaper China Science Daily ran using datasets including AGIEval and C-Eval, two benchmarks used to evaluate the performance of artificial intelligence (AI) models. OpenAI did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment outside of usual business hours. The Baidu announcement comes amid a global AI buzz kicked off by ChatGPT that has spread to China, prompting a flurry of domestic companies to announce rival products. Baidu was the first big Chinese tech company to debut a AI product to rival ChatGPT when it unveiled its language AI Ernie Bot in March. Erni

A Warner Bros Discovery unit and China’s NetEase on Tuesday announced the worldwide launch of role-playing video game “Harry Potter: Magic Awakened”. The free-to-play title will let players experience life as a student at Hogwarts, the fictional school of wizardry in the popular “Harry Potter” series of books by J.K.Rowling. Players can learn magic spells and summon “Harry Potter” characters such as Hermione Granger and Rubeus Hagrid as allies to aid in their battles. The game can be downloaded for free on iOS and Android platforms from Tuesday, the companies said. ABOUT THE GAME Harry Potter: Magic Awakened is the first Collectible Card Game (CCG) that takes place in the wizarding world. As you progress, you’ll unlock exciting new spells and charms that can be used in duels with other players as well as various other adventures at Hogwarts. Each unique spell is represented by a card which is added to your collection of spells when found. Play a Role Harry Potter: Magic Awaken

PARIS: The warnings are coming from all angles: artificial intelligence poses an existential risk to humanity and must be shackled before it is too late. But what are these disaster scenarios and how are machines supposed to wipe out humanity? Paperclips of doom Most disaster scenarios start in the same place: machines will outstrip human capacities, escape human control and refuse to be switched off. “Once we have machines that have a self-preservation goal, we are in trouble,” AI academic Yoshua Bengio told an event this month. But because these machines do not yet exist, imagining how they could doom humanity is often left to philosophy and science fiction. Philosopher Nick Bostrom has written about an “intelligence explosion” he says will happen when superintelligent machines begin designing machines of their own. He illustrated the idea with the story of a superintelligent AI at a paperclip factory. The AI is given the ultimate goal of maximising paperclip output and so “

WhatsApp for Android has been adopting a more iOS-like design in recent beta releases, with the latest change being a bottom navigation bar. The service was also recently spotted working on a redesigned context menu for messages, bringing another aspect closer to the iOS version.  As spotted by  WABetaInfo , WhatsApp’s most recent beta releases on Android (versions 2.23.13.16 and 2.23.13.17) contain pieces of evidence pointing to some minor tweaks for the header. According to the outlet, WhatsApp is experimenting with a white action bar for the app. That said, this UI redesign is not accessible even to beta testers at the moment. The white action bar becomes visible when you switch off your phone’s dark theme, bringing consistency to the app’s top bar and the rest of the interface. This also aligns WhatsApp’s appearance with Google’s Material Design 3 guidelines. In the latest beta version of WhatsApp on Android, WABetaInfo also found hints of a darker top app bar being in the work

WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new feature that will allow users to set a duration for messages in both group and individual chats. WaBetaInfo, in its reports, says that the new message pin duration feature will provide people with a convenient way to ensure timely and relevant information stays visible for a desired period. Once the set time elapses, the message is automatically unpinned, helping to maintain an organized, up-to-date, and clearer conversation. At the moment, the feature is under development and is expected to be released to beta testers in a future update of the app. Read more: WhatsApp introduces feature to silence unknown callers Explaining how the message pin duration will work, the report says that it will enable users to choose how long a message should stay pinned in a chat. It also shares a screenshot of the feature that shows how users will have the flexibility to select a specific duration after which the pinned message is automatically unpinned. It

TOKYO: Japan’s military is testing Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service with an eye to adopting the technology next fiscal year, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Sunday, citing unnamed government sources. The Ministry of Defense already has access to communication satellites in geostationary orbit, but use of Starlink technology, operated by Musk’s SpaceX, would add a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit, the Yomiuri said. Countries around the world are seeking to build resilience against the risk of jamming of communications or attacks on satellites in the event of a conflict. Read more: Musk’s Starlink internet service makes huge announcement Japan’s Self-Defense Forces have been testing Starlink since March with the system deployed in about 10 locations and in training, the newspaper said. Defence ministry spokespeople could not immediately be reached for comment on the report outside business hours. Starlink technology is being deployed by Ukraine on th

OceanGate’s Titan submersible taking tourists on a deep ocean journey to view the wreckage of the Titanic has been missing since Sunday. One pilot and four passengers are aboard. Here is a look at the situation as rescuers search an area the size of the state of Connecticut — or about half the size of Belgium — for the submersible, which could be on the ocean floor or bobbing on the surface, with the tourists bolted in from the outside. The vessel’s oxygen supply will run out today, according to OceanGate, the private company that operates the tour. Related: Missing Titanic submersible’s search reaches sea floor!  INHOSPITABLE TERRAIN If the craft is on the ocean floor, it would be nearly impossible to rescue, experts say. The Titanic wreck is 2.5 miles below the surface. The submersible lost contact about halfway down on its dive. “It’s pitch black down there. It’s freezing cold. The seabed is mud and it’s undulating. You can’t see your hand in front of your face,” said Tim Malt

Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has announced it will build the ‘Dubai AI & Web 3.0 Campus’, the largest cluster of Artificial Intelligence and tech companies in the MENA region. With ambitious plans to expand into a dedicated campus spanning over 100,000 sq. ft. in the next five years, the Campus located at the DIFC Innovation One premises will focus on the use of AI and Web 3.0 in the financial services industry. The ‘Dubai AI & Web 3.0 Campus’ will be home to visionary entrepreneurs, disruptors and engineers who possess a deep passion for emerging technologies. The Campus will provide world-class physical and digital infrastructure including R&D facilities, accelerator programmes and collaborative workspaces, to attract, build and scale AI companies. His Excellency Essa Kazim, Governor of DIFC, said: “DIFC’s 2030 strategy is central to shaping the future of finance and innovation. AI is expected to inject AED103 billion into the UAE economy by 2035 and con

The Meta-owned messenger application, WhatsApp, recently announced two new updates, Silence Unknown Callers and Privacy Checkup, which are now available for Android and ISO users. The recently announced feature, Silence Unknown Callers, is designed to give you more privacy and control of your incoming calls. It helps to automatically screen out spam, scams and calls from unknown people for increased protection. These calls will not ring on your phone but will be visible in your Call list, in case it turns out to be someone important. To enable this feature you have to go to your WhatsApp account privacy and select “Silence Unknown Callers” in the calls option. Two phone screens showing Silence Unknown Callers option on WhatsApp. To spread the word, the second feature, Privacy Checkup, is introduced to make sure the users will acknowledge the options of protection on the application. This step-by-step feature will guide users through important privacy settings to help them choo

Voice actors around the globe are mobilizing against the unregulated use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate and clone human voices that they fear poses a threat to their livelihoods. “We’re fighting a very big monster,” said Mario Filio, a Mexican artist who has done voiceovers for Hollywood star Will Smith, the Obi-Wan Kenobi character in Star Wars and the party-loving lemur King Julien in the animated movie “Madagascar.” Campaigning under the slogan “Don’t steal our voices,” more than 20 voice acting guilds, associations and unions from Europe, the United States and Latin America have created the United Voice Artists coalition. It represents the faceless voiceover artists and narrators of commercials, movies, audiobooks and video games who fear that their voices will be replaced by machines, or even cloned by artificial intelligence without their consent. “The undiscriminating and unregulated use of artificial intelligence is a risk that could lead to the extinction of

BERLIN/STOCKHOLM: Intel (INTC.O) will spend more than 30 billion euros ($33 billion) to develop two chip-making plants in Magdeburg as part of its expansion push in Europe, a deal Chancellor Olaf Scholz hailed on Monday as Germany’s biggest ever foreign investment. Berlin has agreed subsidies worth nearly 10 billion euros with the US chipmaker, a person familiar with the matter said, more than the 6.8 billion euros it had initially offered Intel to build two leading-edge facilities in the eastern city. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said he was grateful to the government and the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where Magdeburg is located, for “fulfilling the vision of a vibrant, sustainable, leading-edge semiconductor industry in Germany and the EU”. Under Gelsinger, Intel has been investing billions in building factories across three continents to restore its dominance in chipmaking and better compete with rivals AMD (AMD.O), Nvidia (NVDA.O) and Samsung (005930.KS). “Today’s agreement is an impo

The Meta owned messaging application, WhatsApp, is set to announce a new feature that will enable users to conveniently manage multiple accounts on a single device. While WhatsApp already offers the option to sign in to one account on multiple devices, this new update will allow individuals to have multiple accounts within a single app and seamlessly switch between them. The discovery of this feature was made by a well-known WhatsApp feature tracker blog, WABetaInfo. Currently, the multi-account functionality is only visible on WhatsApp Business, but it is expected to be extended to other versions in the near future. As per the screenshot shared by the WABetaInfo, WhatsApp will introduce a dedicated menu that enables users to switch between different accounts effortlessly. However, several other social media applications, such as Instagram, Discord, and Telegram, already offer similar feature. Once the user logged in to an additional account on their device, it will be saved in

Microsoft said that the outages that affected certain services of the company through some of the earlier days of this month were the result of cyberattacks, but said it saw no evidence of any customer data being accessed or compromised. “Beginning in early June 2023, Microsoft identified surges in traffic against some services that temporarily impacted availability'” the company said in a blog post. Microsoft said it opened an investigation and began tracking the DDoS activity by the threat actor it refers to as Storm-1359 after it identified the threat. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters as to whether the company had identified the party responsible for the attack. DDoS attacks work by directing high volumes of internet traffic towards targeted servers in a relatively unsophisticated bid to knock them offline. Microsoft’s 365 software suite, including Teams and Outlook, were down for more than two hours for over thousands of users on June 5 and a

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently captured stunning photos of the Martian skies and landscape that offer researchers a glimpse at what Mars looks like at different times of day. Curiosity rover has been on Martian soil since 2012. It captured pictures on April 8, with black and white navigation cameras, according to a Nasa press release, capturing photos in the morning and evening time. The pictures were then turned into panoramic images with colours added, in what Nasa termed a postcard, emphasising the difference between the two times the photos were taken. The postcard showed several landmarks from Mars, including “Marker Band Valley,” where Curiosity once found evidence that there may have been a lake on the site, and two hills named Bolivar and Deepdale. As the picture was captured on a clear day, Curiosity’s image also reveals a mountain 54 miles from the edge of the crater. The photo also shows an SUV-sized Curiosity itself and captures the rover’s tracks across the dusty M

Twitter plans to focus on video, creator and commerce partnerships to revitalize the social media company’s business beyond digital advertising, according to an investor presentation by owner Elon Musk and new Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino that was reviewed by Reuters. Yaccarino, who started as CEO on June 5, told Twitter investors on Thursday that the company is in early conversations with political and entertainment figures, payments services and news and media publishers on potential partnerships, said a source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private investor call. The presentation was Yaccarino’s first time addressing the company’s investors, the source said. After Musk acquired Twitter in October, the social media firm faced months of chaos, including layoffs of thousands of employees, criticism over lax content moderation, and an exodus of many advertisers who did not want their ads appearing next to inappropriate content. Musk’s

From June 21 to 25, gamers, tech enthusiasts, industry professionals and esports fans can experience the Dubai Esports and Games Festival (DEF 2023) at the South Halls of the Dubai Exhibition Centre, Expo City Dubai. With less than a week to go until the we kick off the region’s biggest ever and most exciting esports and games festival, visitors can get ready to immerse themselves in the world of gaming, and be a part of the global gaming community and gear up for an unforgettable series of events. DEF 2023 will come alive for families, friends and gamers with a diverse range of events designed to cater to every gaming passion. Whether a casual gamer, an esports enthusiast, or a seasoned industry professional, DEF has something in store for all visitors! Festival goers can mark their calendars for the GameExpo Summit, a two-day business conference powered by PG Connects, taking place on June 21 and 22. This is the ultimate opportunity for visitors to gain invaluable insights, connec

Binance is under preliminary investigation for illegal canvassing of clients and money-laundering, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Friday, the latest in a series of setbacks for the world’s largest crypto exchange. The investigation is about “the unauthorised practice of the profession of virtual assets service provider” and “aggravated money-laundering,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. A Binance spokesperson said Binance had an “on-site visit last week by the relevant authorities” in France. The exchange “was fully collaborative and we met our obligations accordingly,” they said. “Information about our users is held securely and only provided to government officials upon receipt of documented, appropriate justification,” the spokesperson added. Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao were charged last week by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with 13 offences, including operating an unregistered securities exchange and failing to restrict U.S. custom

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said on Friday that it was leaving the Dutch market because is was unable to register as a virtual asset service provider with the regulator. The company said that starting July 17, existing Dutch users will only be able to withdraw assets from the Binance platform. No further purchases, trades or deposits will be possible. Binance’s Cyprus unit on Wednesday applied to be removed from Cyprus’ register of crypto asset service providers. The Dutch regulator did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Binance, its founder Changpeng Zhao, and the operator of its purportedly independent US exchange. Binance said it intends to defend itself “vigorously” against the SEC’s charges. from Science and Technology News - Latest science and technology news https://ift.tt/dymeDN6

The red eye that refuses to be extinguished, the metal body that cannot be crushed — for many of us the word “robot” conjures one image: the Terminator. But robots are now everywhere, serving as companions in care homes or vacuum cleaners in our homes, and manufacturers are keener than ever to design friendly machines. “At first we noticed the kids could be a bit afraid,” said Do Hwan Kim of his firm Neubility’s tiny delivery robot. To get around the problem, the firm added big doughy eyes that can indicate, making it look like the world’s friendliest futuristic wheelie bin. Dozens of the machines now trundle around campsites, university campuses and golf courses across South Korea. “Campsites even use it on their posters,” Kim told AFP at the VivaTech trade fair in Paris, underlining its transformation from potential threat to family friend. And VivaTech played host to plenty of other robots designed with cuteness in mind — ones with cartoon animal personas, others that looked

For those fearing that the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) will someday eat up all the jobs and robots will be giving alms to humans, I have a story to tell. The era between the 1760s and 1820s marked some of the most enlightening times in the modern world. It was the industrial revolution, reaching far and wide into the West. A drastic transition started appearing as the new visionary industrialists started pivoting from human labor to machine production, and why wouldn’t they? It was cost-effective, it consumed less time, and the finished goods were manufactured in masses. Just as the factory and industry manufacturing system was being applauded by the elites, on the other side of the fence there was a whole different ball game. People were struggling in keeping their jobs intact from these unusually efficient machines and mechanical structures. Waves of panic were hard-hitting towns and cities with words that these machines will utterly supersede humans. Multitude

Google’s popular video platform YouTube has eased monetization policy under its YouTube Partner Program (YPP). YouTube has made this change in monetization policy to support small content creators. Under the new policy, the content creators soon will be able to monetize their YouTube channel upon completion of 500 subscribers and 3000 hours of watch time. The criteria for short video views have also been reduced from 10 million to 3 million. According to YouTube content creators will be paid to run ads through short videos. Ads will run on YouTube shorts and 45 percent of the earnings from advertising will be provided to content creators. A content creator on one million YouTube shorts views will be able to get up to 900 US dollars but this amount can be more or less. Earlier, to monetize the YouTube channel, it was necessary to complete 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time. According to media reports, YouTube has implemented the new monetization policy in the US, UK, Ca

KARACHI: Middle-class segment of society is finding it difficult in getting smartphones these days as the prices of the units are skyrocketing across Pakistan.  Sensing the need to provide cheaper smartphones to the countrymen, the Deploy group of companies has launched cheaper smartphones with the latest features at reasonable prices. Talking to ARY News’ program Bakhabar Savera, Chairman Deploy Group of Companies Asif Khan said now middle-class people also can avail of smartphones at reasonable prices. “The smartphone devices have also become very expensive due to the rising dollar price in the country and we have tried to take this into account,” he told ARY News. Asif Khan showed the phone made by the company and told me that he uses the same handset, which has all the qualities that a good smartphone has. He added that the cost of the smartphone made by his company are also affordable for everyone.  Asif Khan said the government is considering smartphones as luxury items bu

Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder, is set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday during his visit to China, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The meeting will mark Xi’s first meeting with a foreign private entrepreneur in recent years. The people said the encounter may be a one-on-one meeting. A third source confirmed they would meet, without providing details. The sources did not say what the two might discuss. Gates tweeted on Wednesday that he had landed in Beijing for the first time since 2019 and that he would meet with partners who had been working on global health and development challenges with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation and China’s State Council Information Office, which handles media queries on behalf of the Chinese government, did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s board in 2020 to focus on philanthropic works related to global health, education and climate change

EU lawmakers pushed the bloc Wednesday closer to passing one of the world’s first laws regulating artificial intelligence (AI) systems like ChatGPT, by backing a key text that forms the basis of a future law. While the European Union first proposed such a law in 2021, the draft rules took on greater urgency when ChatGPT exploded onto the scene last year, showing off AI’s dizzying advances and possible risks. The EU says its law, once passed, will set the “global standard”, but the bloc could face pushback from big tech companies. US-based OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, has already warned that depending on the content of the law it could be forced to withdraw from the EU. While AI proponents hail the technology for how it will transform society, including work, healthcare and creative pursuits, others are worried by its potential to undermine democracy. There have been a slew of awe-inspiring examples of AI’s uses including a “final Beatles record” created using the technology, wh

NEW YORK: Meta Platforms (META.O) said on Tuesday that it would provide researchers with access to components of a new “human-like” artificial intelligence model that it said can analyze and complete unfinished images more accurately than existing models. The model, I-JEPA, uses background knowledge about the world to fill in missing pieces of images, rather than looking only at nearby pixels like other generative AI models, the company said. That approach incorporates the kind of human-like reasoning advocated by Meta’s top AI scientist Yann LeCun and helps the technology to avoid errors that are common to AI-generated images, like hands with extra fingers, it said. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is a prolific publisher of open-sourced AI research via its in-house research lab. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said that sharing models developed by Meta’s researchers can help the company by spurring innovation, spotting safety gaps and lowering costs. Read more: US Co

Meta owned messenger application, WhatsApp, recently released new updates for Android users. The company has refreshed the look of the main page with a new layout for tabs like Chats, Calls and more. The update also adds a new Chat Lock feature, WearOS support, and new tools for status, among others. the user also gets an option to save important messages when using Disappearing Messages option. All the new features are being rolled out to everyone. But, since this is a gradual rollout, it will take some time to reach all the Android users of WhatsApp. New layout on WhatsApp The just refreshed the layout of the main WhatsApp window, after which the users will now see the Chats, Calls, Communities, and Status tabs at the bottom of the page, make it easier for people to quickly access any of the aforementioned tabs. Meanwhile, the iOS users already use a similar interface and now Android beta users of WhatsApp will also be able to experience this layout. Chat Lock The update also

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday Britain could be the global home of artificial intelligence regulation as he pitched London as a tech hub to industry leaders and urged them to grasp the opportunities and challenges of AI. Sunak’s government will host a summit on the risks and regulation of AI later this year, and on Monday he said the “tectonic plates of technology are shifting.” “The possibilities (of AI) are extraordinary. But we must – and we will – do it safely,” Sunak said in a speech at the London Tech Week conference. “I want to make the UK not just the intellectual home, but the geographical home of global AI safety regulation.” Governments around the world are now trying to find a balance whereby they can assess and rein in the potential negative consequences of AI without stifling innovation. Sunak said the tech sector was at the heart of his priority to grow the economy, and while he acknowledged concerns that employees were worried about their jobs, previous

Nigeria’s markets regulator has ordered the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance to halt its operations in the country, saying a local unit that courted Nigerian investors through a website was illegal. “Binance Nigeria Limited is hereby directed to immediately stop soliciting Nigerian investors in any form whatsoever,” the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a statement dated June 9. It said the company was not registered or regulated, making it illegal. Binance could not be immediately reached for comment. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week sued Binance and Coinbase for allegedly breaching its rules. Last year, Nigeria’s SEC published a set of regulations for digital assets, signalling Africa’s most populous country was trying to find a middle ground between an outright ban on crypto assets and their unregulated use. That was after Nigeria’s central bank in 2021 banned banks and financial institutions from dealing in or facilitating tr

Daily US sign-ups for Netflix have jumped in the first few days after the streaming giant’s password-sharing crackdown came into effect on May 23, data from research firm Antenna showed. The news sent shares of the company up 2.3% to $418.92 in early trading. Looking for new ways to make money in a saturating market and a tough economy, Netflix moved to regulate the sharing of account passwords with friends and family – a drastic turnaround for a company that had once tweeted “Love is sharing a password”. Netflix had estimated that more than a 100 million households had supplied their log-in credentials to people outside their homes. Under the new rules, U.S. users can add a member outside of their homes for an additional fee of $8 per month. Its calculations seem to have paid off as the company recorded nearly 100,000 daily sign-ups on both May 26 and May 27, according to Antenna. Netflix, which has expanded its crackdown to more than 100 other countries, did not immediately res

WASHINGTON: US senators on Thursday introduced two separate bipartisan artificial intelligence bills on Thursday amid growing interest in addressing issues surrounding the technology. One would require the U.S. government to be transparent when using AI to interact with people and another would establish an office to determine if the United States is remaining competitive in the latest technologies. Lawmakers are beginning to consider what new rules might be needed because of the rise of AI. The technology made headlines earlier this year when ChatGPT, an AI program that can answer questions in written form, became generally available. Senators Gary Peters, a Democrat who chairs the Homeland Security committee, introduced a bill along with Senators Mike Braun and James Lankford, both Republicans, which would require U.S. government agencies to tell people when the agency is using AI to interact with them. The bill also requires agencies to create a way for people to appeal any dec