Uber increasingly considering buybacks as cash flow ramps up - CEO
Uber Technologies is considering buybacks and dividends to shareholders as its cash flow ramps up, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
2023-09-08 03:52
Rivian to benefit next year as EV battery material prices ease, says CFO
Electric-vehicle maker Rivian Automotive will benefit from a significant deflation for battery material prices in 2024, finance chief
2023-09-08 03:27
News Corp in negotiations with AI companies over content usage - CEO
By Helen Coster and Zaheer Kachwala News Corp is engaged in "various negotiations" with artificial intelligence companies over
2023-09-08 00:25
Snapchat adds new safety features for teen users
Snapchat says it's working to make its app even safer for teen users.
2023-09-08 00:21
Microsoft to defend customers on AI copyright challenges
Microsoft will pay legal damages on behalf of customers using its artificial intelligence (AI) products if they are
2023-09-08 00:19
Anti-drone technology operational at Dublin Airport
The airport was closed six times due to illegal drone activity in the first eight weeks of 2023.
2023-09-08 00:19
IMF and regulators set out roadmap to contain crypto risks
By Huw Jones LONDON Global financial regulators and the International Monetary Fund on Thursday set out a roadmap
2023-09-07 23:58
Behind-the-scenes footage from making of first Grand Theft Auto shows how far franchise has come
A resurfaced clip of the makers of the first GTA game creating the fight scenes is going viral as it shows just how far the franchise has come since 1997. DMA Design Ltd, a Scottish company who created the first game were interviewed by the BBC, and the clip shows one of their employees punching the air while wearing pads to map it out for the animators. When describing how the game would look, they told cameras: "It's a mission-based driving game, where basically you're driving around the city, stealing cars, running over pedestrians... " Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter
2023-09-07 23:50
First photo emerges of Elon Musk and his baby twins with Neuralink director
The first photo of Elon Musk and Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis with their baby twins has emerged. Author Walter Isaacson posted the picture on X, formerly known as Twitter, which showed Mr Musk and Ms Zilis with their twins — who were 16 months old at the time — sitting on their laps. Mr Musk fathered a set of twins with Ms Zilis, his director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, in 2021, Insider reported. The mother of two was also previously a board member at OpenAI, also owned by Mr Musk. The children were born weeks before the billionaire welcomed his second child via surrogate with his on-again, off-again partner, the musician Grimes. Ms Zilis reportedly told her colleagues at Neuralink that they had conceived the children via in vitro fertilization (IVF) and did not have a romantic relationship, according to Reuters. Mr Isaacson, who is writing a biography on the Tesla CEO, said the photo was taken during a visit to Ms Zilis’ house in Austin, Texas where Mr Musk walked him and Ms Zilis through his concerns about AI. “This past March, Musk texted me, ‘There are a few important things I would like to talk to you about. Can only be done in person,’” Mr Isaacson wrote in an excerpt from his biography posted in TIME Magazine. “He said we should leave our phones in the house while we sat outside, because, he said, someone could use them to monitor our conversation. But he later agreed that I could use what he said about AI in my book.” Mr Isaacson said Mr Musk told him of his concerns that AI’s rapid development was on a collision course with a “leveling off” in human intelligence that Mr Musk attributed to lower human birth rates. “For a moment I was struck by the oddness of the scene,” Mr Isaacson wrote. “We were sitting on a suburban patio by a tranquil backyard swimming pool on a sunny spring day, with two bright-eyed twins learning to toddle, as Musk somberly speculated about the window of opportunity for building a sustainable human colony on Mars before an AI apocalypse destroyed earthly civilization.” Mr Isaacson said the conversation was the beginning of Mr Musk’s latest company x.AI. The billionaire has said the goal of the company is to find “the true nature of the universe.” Mr Musk is a father to nine children with three different women. Read More Elon Musk and Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis reportedly conceived twins via IVF Why is Elon Musk obsessed with the letter X? Elon Musk ‘borrowed $1bn from SpaceX’ at same time as Twitter acquisition SpaceX launch of Starship rocket on hold amid ‘mishap investigation’ Famed tech journalist deletes X account with epic rant at Elon Musk Why is Elon Musk obsessed with the letter X?
2023-09-07 22:53
Global regulators seek to crack down on decentralised finance
By Huw Jones LONDON Global securities regulators set out on Thursday their first blueprint to make participants in
2023-09-07 20:16
Massive bubble of galaxies could be ‘fossil of the Big Bang’, say scientists
A huge bubble of galaxies that is one billion lightyears across could be a remnant of the ripples caused by the Big Bang, according to astronomers who have mapped the structure. The structure, named Hoʻoleilana by University of Hawaii scientists, is thought to have been caused by so-called Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs). These were ripples in the particles of the early Universe in the period following the Big Bang, when planets, solar systems and galaxies were not yet fully formed. As the ripples went outward, they created areas of density in the particles, causing bubble-like structures in which galaxies eventually coalesced. Until now, the BAOs were just a prediction – part of the wider Big Bang theory. No specific structures in the Universe had been found which mimicked their patterns. But Hoʻoleilana fits the description of these huge cosmic bubbles perfectly, according to Brent Tully, who led the study at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy. “We were not looking for it. It is so huge that it spills to the edges of the sector of the sky that we were analyzing,” he said. “As an enhancement in the density of galaxies it is a much stronger feature than expected. The very large diameter of 1bn light years is beyond theoretical expectations. “If its formation and evolution are in accordance with theory, this BAO is closer than anticipated, implying a high value for the expansion rate of the universe.” The bubble is absolutely huge. It is made up of several superclusters, structures which themselves are thought to be among the Universe’s largest arrangements of matter. This includes the Hercules Supercluster, the Corona Borealis Supercluster and the Sloan Great Wall. All of these structures contain thousands of galaxies. In the middle of Hoʻoleilana sits the Bootes Supercluster and the Bootes Void, an immense space of nothingness which is an incredible 330m lightyears across. Daniel Pomarede, from the CEA Paris-Saclay University, who contributed to the research, said: “It was an amazing process to construct this map and see how the giant shell structure of Ho’oleilana is composed of elements that were identified in the past as being themselves some of the largest structures of the universe.” The research was published on 5 September in The Astrophysical Journal. 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.
2023-09-07 19:45
World’s largest wind turbine breaks record for power generated in a single day
A wind turbine in China has set a new world record for the most amount of electricity generated in a single day, after operating during typhoon conditions. The Goldwind GWH252-16MW turbine, which was installed at an offshore wind farm in Fujian Province in June, produced 384.1 megawatt hours in a single day – enough to power roughly 170,000 homes. The record was achieved on 1 September, according to state-owned power company China Three Gorges (CTG), surpassing the previous record set by Danish company Vestas in August. The turbine’s rotor has a diameter of 252 metres – more than double the diameter of the London Eye – and at full speed each blade can reach up to 70 per cent of the speed of sound. The record-breaking wind turbine features an innovative design that allows it to adjust its blades in real time when winds reach high speeds. This allowed it to continue operating during Typhoon Haikui last week, during which conventional turbines were forced to shut down. “We are closely monitoring critical components like the main control programme, pitch system and generators to gradually lift power restrictions while ensuring operational safety,” a spokesperson for Goldwind told the South China Morning Post. Figures from the Chinese Wind Energy Association show that China installed more than 11,000 wind turbines last year, 90 per cent of which were at onshore wind farms. Separate figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggest that China added nearly three times as much wind capacity in 2022 compared to the European Union, and accounts for more than a third of all of the world’s installed wind capacity. Projections from the agency indicate that electricity from wind and solar will double over the next five years, providing almost 20 per cent of global power generation by 2027. “China is forecast to install almost half of new global renewable power capacity over 2022-27, as growth accelerates in the next fice years,” a recent IEA report noted. “Very ambitious new renewable energy targets, market reforms and strong provincial government support provide long-term revenue certainty for renewables. In most Chinese provinces, utility-scale renewables are cheaper than regulated coal electricity prices, driving rapid adoption. In the main forecast, China is expected to reach its 2030 target of [renewable] capacity five years in advance.” Read More How tech could turn our homes into renewable energy power stations World’s first solar powered hybrid truck tested on public roads Period and fertility tracking apps scrutinised over data security concerns AI can help generate synthetic viruses and spark pandemics, warns ex-Google executive Google boss says he wants to make people ‘shrug’
2023-09-07 19:24