Technology

How far do Elon Musk and Reform UK share a political vision?
Posted on Sunday December 22, 2024

Immigration, culture wars and shrinking the public sector all feature highly on their agendasThe get-together last week of Elon Musk, Nigel Farage and Reform UK’s treasurer, Nick Candy, was not just a gathering of Donald Trump fans. It was a meeting of minds.Immigration, culture wars and shrinking the public sector all feature highly on their political agendas, developed under the umbrella of Trump’s Maga vision. Continue reading...

It’s probably just a plane: drone experts advise calm over New Jersey sightings
Posted on Saturday December 21, 2024

Although politicians have called to shoot them down, experts say the lights are likely legal drones, planes – or starsAt first, in mid-November, the mysterious lights were seen blinking across the night skies of New Jersey. Then, they spread. Reports of incandescent flying objects were logged in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Bystanders in Virginia Beach said they saw an aircraft “unlike any other they’ve seen”. Sightings have now come from as far afield as Louisiana, Florida and Arizona. People across the US are looking up.No one seems to know for certain where these enigmatic flying objects are from or who is controlling them. But several lawmakers and much of the general public seem dead-set on one answer: a swarm of drones. Continue reading...

OpenAI whistleblower who died was being considered as witness against company
Posted on Saturday December 21, 2024

Suchir Balaji, listed in court filing as having ‘relevant documents’ about copyright violation, died on 26 NovemberSuchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26.Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August. He had been well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI’s strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products. Continue reading...

Jorge Rivera-Herrans’s musical sensation Epic is just one of a series of works making a splash on the online platformWhen Jorge Rivera-Herrans released part of Epic: the Musical last Christmas, he managed to push Taylor Swift off the top of the US iTunes album charts. So there is a lot at stake when the final instalment of his musical retelling of the Odyssey is released on Christmas Day.Rivera-Herrans’s project has already been an extraordinary success, with more monthly listeners on Spotify (1.6m) than veterans such as Morrissey, Liam Gallagher, or the Sex Pistols, and 119m plays on the platform in the past 28 days alone. Continue reading...

AI learns to distinguish between aromas of US and Scottish whiskies
Posted on Thursday December 19, 2024

One algorithm identified the five strongest notes in each drink more accurately than any one of a panel of expertsNotch up another win for artificial intelligence. Researchers have used the technology to predict the notes that waft off whisky and determine whether a dram was made in the US or Scotland.The work is a step towards automated systems that can predict the complex aroma of whisky from its molecular makeup. Expert panels usually assess woody, smoky, buttery or caramel aromas, which can help to ensure they don’t vary substantially between batches of the same product. Continue reading...

Man who falsely claimed to be bitcoin creator sentenced for continuing to sue developers
Posted on Thursday December 19, 2024

Craig Wright given one-year suspended sentence for breaching court order to stop suing bitcoin developersAn Australian computer scientist who falsely claimed to be the creator of bitcoin has been given a one-year suspended prison sentence after the high court in London ruled he was in contempt because he would not stop suing people.Mr Justice Mellor had already found that Craig Wright, 54, repeatedly lied about his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by the person or people who launched bitcoin – the cryptocurrency that was first mined in 2009 and recently soared in value to £79,000. Continue reading...

Brain rot 2024: the best and funniest viral moments of the year
Posted on Sunday December 22, 2024

From holding space to a baby pygmy hippo, there’s much to be learned about the world through the memes and trends that dominated our social media feeds this year“Brain rot” has been named Oxford’s word of the year, meaning “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging”.But no matter how “trivial” or “unchallenging” the content may be, there’s still a lot to be learned about our culture through the trends, memes and storylines that dominated our social media feeds this year. So let’s embrace the brain rot and take a journey back through the 10 best and funniest viral trends that the internet had to offer in 2024. Continue reading...

Generation TikTok: how sportswomen set the bar higher than the men
Posted on Sunday December 22, 2024

Female athlete power on social media became ever more strident in 2024 – but the backlash also damaged careers and wellbeingLina Nielsen remembers the moment she had the idea. She was sitting around the Olympic Village in Paris with her sprinting teammates – and she was bored. “I said to Yemi Mary John: ‘I’m gonna make this TikTok’,” Nielsen recalls. She took herself to her bedroom, got out the flip phone each athlete had been given and typed into an Excel spreadsheet: “Where you at? Holla at me.”Her five-second spoof of Kelly Rowland’s music-video texting fail took hardly longer than that to make. It also got 8m views. “It’s funny that the videos that do that best are the ones you don’t put any effort in,” says Nielsen with a laugh. She is still trying to make sense of the fact that her TikTok channel was the most popular of any British athlete at the Games, beating even the knit-tastic Tom Daley in second place. At the end of the Olympic fortnight her channels had been viewed by more than the Australian and German teams combined. Continue reading...