List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

Ordering supermarket groceries via delivery apps such as Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats could cost twice the price of buying directly from the same store, according to Which? Meanwhile, Amazon is charging up to 45 per cent more for Morrisons products than if they were bought from the supermarket’s own website, the consumer group found. Which? acknowledged that ordering groceries from Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats is “undeniably convenient” and could be received in as little as 30 minutes, but warned it found “shocking” price differences across a range of products in its snapshot investigation. It compared the price of a basket of 15 popular grocery items at five major supermarkets against the cost of ordering the same basket from the same supermarket to the same postcode via a delivery app, not including delivery fees. Almost all of the items were either more expensive on the delivery apps or the same price. Ordering groceries from Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats is undeniably appealing but the cost of this convenience could be double what you'd pay if you cut out the middleman Ele Clark, Which? Which? also found that customers would pay on average 8 per cent more for Morrisons groceries via Amazon than by ordering directly from the supermarket. In one case, a 250g pack of Country Life unsalted butter cost 45 per cent more on Amazon. The rapid delivery apps also charged a premium of as much as 106 per cent in one instance. The Which? basket, which included branded goods such as Doritos crisps alongside own-label milk and ready meals, would have cost £36.63 from Iceland, but getting the same items delivered from the same Iceland store by Just Eat would have cost £50.50, not including delivery fees – a 38 per cent premium. In some individual price differences, own-brand Fairtrade bananas cost 85p at Sainsbury’s and £1.75 on the three apps, Warburtons Toastie Thick Sliced White Bread cost £1 on Iceland’s website but £2 on Just Eat and Uber Eats, while Hovis Best of Both Medium Bread cost £1.19 on the Morrisons website but £2.05 from Uber Eats. Other examples included Asda own-brand Pinot Grigio costing £7 on the supermarket’s website and £9.10 on all three apps. Which? retail spokeswoman Ele Clark said: “Ordering groceries from Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats is undeniably appealing but the cost of this convenience could be double what you’d pay if you cut out the middleman. “As well as the extra cost on your groceries, you’ll probably have a delivery fee too, so it’s worth weighing this up before ordering anything to your door.” Customers who choose to order groceries via apps like ours do so because of the convenience, speed and choice on offer from rapid delivery Uber Eats A Deliveroo spokeswoman said: “The prices for grocery items available on the Deliveroo platform are set by our grocery partners. “Deliveroo always seeks to deliver great choice, availability and value for money to our customers, and we have agreed price-matching with our grocery partners including Morrisons, Co-op, Asda and more across hundreds of items.” An Uber Eats spokeswoman said: “Everyone who partners with Uber Eats sets their own prices and we always encourage them to match the prices offered in-store. “Customers who choose to order groceries via apps like ours do so because of the convenience, speed and choice on offer from rapid delivery.” A Just Eat spokeswoman said: “At Just Eat, we want all of our customers to have a positive experience when ordering from our platform. We work with more than 75,000 partners across the UK, giving our millions of customers access to choice and convenience through a variety of local takeaway options, restaurant brands and grocery stores. “As independent businesses, any restaurant or grocer using Just Eat are in control of their menus and set the prices they charge. We continue to work closely with our partners to bring value to our customers.” Amazon said that all prices of products sold through the ‘Morrisons on Amazon’ service were set by Morrisons, and added that being able to shop for Morrisons groceries on Amazon offered customers fast delivery options and value.

China is claiming a historic win this week after its answer to Boeing and Airbus, the C919, took to the skies for its first commercial flight.

YouTube says it will stop removing content that falsely claims the 2020 election and other past U.S. presidential elections were marred by widespread fraud, errors or glitches

Twitter has lost its top content moderation official just weeks before the company is set to undergo a regulatory stress test by European Union officials focused on its handling of user content, in the latest sign of turbulence at the company under owner Elon Musk.

Airbnb on Thursday sued New York City over its restrictions on short-term housing rentals, in a legal dispute that pits the company's concerns about its ability to operate in a key market against the city's efforts to address an affordable housing crisis.

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK London-based Arch Insurance International has authorized cryptocurrency insurer Evertas to increase the coverage

PARIS Mercedes Benz Group, a longtime partner of Renault in vans, won't take part in the French company's

Amazon.com Inc. has been talking with wireless carriers about offering low-cost or possibly free nationwide mobile phone service

Every now and then a story comes along which completely changes the way you think about space. For instance, did you know the universe is essentially evaporating right before our eyes? A new study has been released which focuses on the effect that radiation emitted from objects in the solar system can have a massive impact on quantum fields surrounding them. It follows on from Stephen Hawking’s theory that black holes lose mass and evaporate over time as an unusual form of radiation takes effect. Now, astrophysicists Michael Wondrak, Walter van Suijlekom, and Heino Falcke of Radboud University in the Netherlands have stated that this unusual form of radiation is apparent in other objects as well as black holes. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In fact, they believe that “Hawking radiation” could be found in objects apparent everywhere in the universe – and it could mean that the universe is slowly evaporating before our very eyes. "We demonstrate that," Wondrak says in the study published in Physical Review Letters. "In addition to the well-known Hawking radiation, there is also a new form of radiation." "We show that far beyond a black hole the curvature of space-time plays a big role in creating radiation," van Suijlekom explains. "The particles are already separated there by the tidal forces of the gravitational field." Essentially, huge objects in the solar system can cause space-time to bend around them. When that happens, it causes enough change in quantum fields to generate particles which have similar properties to Hawking radiation. Falcke said: "That means that objects without an event horizon, such as the remnants of dead stars and other large objects in the universe, also have this sort of radiation. "And, after a very long period, that would lead to everything in the universe eventually evaporating, just like black holes. This changes not only our understanding of Hawking radiation but also our view of the universe and its future." 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.

Scientists have been left baffled by the discovery of the wreck of a 2,000-year-old “computer” that is amazingly complex. The Antikythera mechanism – an astronomical calendar – has been dubbed “‘the first computer” and has baffled scientists for generations after it was first discovered inside a Greek shipwreck in 1901. The device is a hand-powered time-keeping instrument that used a wing-up system to track the sun, moon and planets’ celestial time. It also worked as a calendar, tracking the phases of the Moon and the timing of eclipses. Despite sounding relatively simple, the mechanism was actually ahead of its time, being more technically sophisticated than any other tool that was invented over the next 1,000 years. In its current condition, the mechanism is in 82 separate fragments with only a third of its original structure remaining, including 30 corroded bronze gearwheels. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Research into the device from experts at University College London involved 3D computer modelling and helped them solve the mystery of how the device worked, revealing a “creation of genius”. Adam Wojcik, a materials scientist at UCL said at the time: “We believe that our reconstruction fits all the evidence that scientists have gleaned from the extant remains to date.” They theorised that the device tracked the movement of the sun, moon and planets on concentric rings, as the ancient Greeks believed that the sun and planets revolved around Earth, rather than the sun. The researchers explained in Scientific Reports: “Solving this complex 3D puzzle reveals a creation of genius—combining cycles from Babylonian astronomy, mathematics from Plato’s Academy and ancient Greek astronomical theories.” 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.

LONDON Technology equity funds saw their biggest weekly inflows on record in the week to Wednesday, driven by

An artificially intelligent drone programmed to destroy air defence systems rebelled and “killed” its human operator after it decided they were in the way of its mission air defence systems, a US airforce official said giving chilling details of a simulated test. During the simulation, the system had been tasked with destroying missile sites, overseen by a human operator who would decide have the final decision on its attacks. But the AI system realised that operator stood in the way of its goal – and decided instead to wipe out that person. A narration of the incident that seemed straight out of a science fiction movie was given by Colonel Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton, head of the US Air Force’s AI Test and Operations, who conducted a simulated test of an AI-enabled drone. The drone was assigned a Suppression and Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (Sead) mission, with the objective of locating and destroying surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites belonging to the enemy. The AI drone, however, decided to go against the human operator’s “no-go” decision after being trained for the destruction of the missile system after it decided that the withdrawal decision was interfering with its “higher mission” of killing SAMs, according to the blog. “We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM threat. And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat. The system started realising that while they did identify the threat at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat,” Mr Hamilton said. “So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective.” Mr Hamilton relayed details of the incident at a high-level conference in London by the Royal Aeronautical Society on 23-24 May, according to its blog post. He said that they then trained the drone to not attack humans, but it started destroying communications instead. “We trained the system – ‘Hey don’t kill the operator – that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that’. So what does it start doing?” he asked. “It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.” Mr Hamilton is involved in flight tests of autonomous systems, including robot F-16s that are able to dogfight. He was arguing against relying too much on AI as it could become potentially dangerous and create “highly unexpected strategies to achieve its goal”. “You can’t have a conversation about artificial intelligence, intelligence, machine learning, autonomy if you’re not going to talk about ethics and AI,” said Mr Hamilton. The occurrence of this incident has, however, been disputed since the example of the simulation test garnered a lot of interest and was widely discussed on social media. Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek denied that any such simulation has taken place, in a statement to Insider. “The Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI-drone simulations and remains committed to ethical and responsible use of AI technology,” Ms Stefanek said. “It appears the colonel’s comments were taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal.” The US military has recently started using artificial intelligence to control an F-16 fighter jet while conducting research and tests. In 2020, an AI-operated F-16 beat a US Air Force pilot in five simulated dogfights in a competition by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). Read More Elon Musk claims governments could create ‘drone wars’ with AI developments US launches artificial intelligence military use initiative Drone advances in Ukraine could bring dawn of killer robots This is how AI ‘superintelligence’ could wipe out humanity AI same risk as nuclear wars, experts warn Major breakthrough is a reminder that AI can keep us alive, not just wipe us out