List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

Shares in Dell Technologies Inc rose 22.2% and hit a record high on Friday after it raised full-year

Warner Music Central Europe has offered its first record deal to a digital character, Noonoouri, releasing her debut single Dominoes featuring German DJ Alle Farben on Friday. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology was used to create the singing voice of Noonoouri, which has been based on a real singer’s voice but altered so she has her own distinct sound. The songwriters and musicians on the track will receive royalties and publishing splits just like any traditional song, the PA news agency understands. The character’s debut track Dominoes features 38-year-old German DJ and music producer Alle Farben, real name Frans Zimmer, and was written by a group of songwriters and musicians. The music video also features the avatar wearing Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand Skims, which was chosen by Noonoouri creator Joerg Zuber. Commenting on her debut music video on Instagram, Mr Zuber said: “After two years working so hard on this music project, we finally can share this incredible teamwork with world – thank you @warnermusic.de for believing in us #TheBeginning.” A spokesperson for Warner Music Central Europe said: “Noonoouri is a long-standing digital character who we’ve signed to a record deal. “She’s not AI generated, though AI assisted tech was used to help create her singing voice. “Talented songwriters and musicians wrote and recorded her debut track Dominoes, and we can’t wait for fans to discover it.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

By Ismail Shakil and David Ljunggren OTTAWA Canada unveiled draft rules on Friday for a law to compel

You would think people would read the room, and learn from the tragic and fatal implosion of the Oceangate submersible in July, yet there’s already plans for another trip down to the Titanic wreckage next year – and the US government doesn’t want it to go ahead. Two months after the Titan sub crushed underwater, killing five people, officials are trying to stop Georgia-based firm RMS Titanic Inc. (RMST) from trying to recover further historical items from the wreckage to add to its collection of artifacts it exhibits. While RMST owns the salvage rights to the doomed liner which infamously struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, the US government is drawing attention to both federal law and an international agreement which classes the shipwreck as a hallowed gravesite. According to the Associated Press, the government states in court documents filed on Friday that RMST is “not free to disregard” the “validly enacted federal law” mentioned above, but it nonetheless is “its stated intent”. “[The shipwreck] will be deprived of the protections Congress granted it,” its lawyers argue. RMST, meanwhile, says it looks to take images of the entire site, including areas where “deterioration has opened chasms sufficient to permit a remotely operated vehicle to penetrate the hull without interfering with the current structure”. Provided the objects are not “affixed to the wreck itself”, artefacts recovered could include items from “inside the Marconi room” – that’s the room where the ship’s wireless radio was used to communicate with other vessels and those on the shore. RMST also insists they do not plan to cut into or detach any part of the wreck “at this time”, but that they don’t plan to seek a permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – something the US government says it needs in order for the firm to move forward with its plans. The NOAA oversees the public interest in the Titanic, and on its website accepts it “may be in the public’s interest to salvage some artifacts” from the wreckage. “NOAA therefore balances this value with the Congressional intent to manage the wreck site as a maritime memorial consistent with the International Agreement, which proclaims that the Titanic shall be recognized as a memorial to those who perished. “NOAA has concluded that the recovery of many of the artifacts from the debris field (with certain exceptions) is consistent with the NOAA Guidelines and the International Agreement, including the in situ preservation policy. “However, NOAA has also determined that recovery of artifacts from within either of the two hull sections is not consistent with the purposes of a maritime memorial.” It’s not the first time the US government and RMST have had a legal battle over the ship, as back in 2020 a similar case concerning a planned expedition made its way to the courts, before the coronavirus pandemic scuppered proposals and the issue didn’t go any further. 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.

Threads is finally adding yet another basic piece of functionality, as it attempts to keep users coming back. Meta launched Threads in July, seemingly in a rush to capitalise on particular problems at Elon Musk’s rival Twitter. It appeared to pay off, with the app quickly becoming the fastest growing in history, hitting 100 million users in just five days. But the speed meant that a variety of important features were missing, include a web version of the app and search functionality. In the time since, the user numbers of Threads appear to have fallen off, presumably partly in frustration at the lack of features on the app. Now Threads is adding the latter, so that people will be able to look for posts containing keywords. That functionality is already readily available on Twitter, as well as the main Instagram app. “Get excited – search is coming to Threads,” he wrote on the site, along with a n image of Vin Diesel reading “I bet you gonna enjoy this”. Threads also launched without a following-only feed, allowing people to circumvent the app’s algorithm, which tends to highlight posts from companies rather than people a user follows. That functionality has also been added recently. In the time since it was launched, Meta has been adding many of those features into Threads. Even still, they do not seem to be stopping people leaving the site: the recent introduction of a web version of Threads did little to attract more users, data suggests. Read More Threads’ launch of anticipated feature did little to attract more users, data finds Threads launches on the web for everyone – apart from Europeans Elon Musk became ‘anti-woke’ because of his daughter’s gender transition, book claims

Antarctica might be the only continent on Earth with no natural human habitation, but it’s emerged that an “Antarctica accent” is very much a thing. Despite having no locals, thousands of scientists have made up an ever-changing population in research stations over the years. The continent is so isolated and the level of interaction between researchers is so intense, that a common accent is beginning to emerge there despite people coming from different parts of the world. At its busiest points in the year during the summer, Antarctica is home to around 5,000 people. Only around 1,000 people live there during the winter months. The idea of accents changing due to human interaction on Antarctica is no different to the phenomenon seen throughout history at a glacial pace. However, given the very specific sample size, it’s an opportunity for scientists to study it at a much quicker rate and on a much smaller scale. Experts at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich published a study in 2019 which focused on the change in accents observed in 11 people who took part in the British Antarctic Survey. @human.1011 There’s an Antarctic Accent! #language #linguistics #english #antarctica Of the 11 who were studied, eight came from England, one from the US, one from Germany and one from Iceland. Their voices were recorded every six weeks, and the team found that over time they developed longer vowel sounds. There was a physical change too, with participants pronouncing the “ou” sound in the front of their mouths rather than the back of their throats. Speaking to IFL Science, Jonathan Harrington, study author and Professor of Phonetics and Speech Processing at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich said: "The Antarctic accent is not really perceptible as such – it would take much longer for it to become so – but it is acoustically measurable. "It's mostly an amalgamation of some aspects of the spoken accents of the winterers before they went to Antarctica, together with an innovation. It's far more embryonic [than conventional English accents] given that it had only a short time to develop and also, of course, because it's only distributed across a small group of speakers.” 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.

LONDON Increasing numbers of governments around the world are scrutinising Worldcoin, a crypto project co-founded by OpenAI CEO

SHENZHEN, China The surprise launch of the latest high-end smartphone from Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies has triggered

Very few new users were attracted by the anticipated launch of Twitter rival Threads’ web application, new data suggests. Instagram’s Threads, launched in early July, swiftly became the fastest-growing app in the world and initially posed as a legitimate rival to Elon Musk’s platform Twitter, now rebranded as X. Though launched without key features of its rival, its early strategic roll out at a key time when Twitter was facing widespread backlash for policy changes under Mr Musk helped Threads quickly accumulate users. But weeks since its launch, Threads lacked one of the most basic features of social networks – to be able to use it outside of an app. Last week, the Threads web app was finally rolled out, with the platform’s chief and Instagram boss Adam Mosseri announcing that the web experience was available for everyone at threads.net. “Let us know what you think,” he said. While in the US, Threads’ website use jumped up by a fifth over the past week compared to the week prior, how this traffic may have contributed to the onboarding of new users remains unclear. Globally, the traffic increase to the platform via the website during this period was also only 3 per cent, according to digital intelligence firm Similarweb. In terms of other parameters as well, Threads’ traffic appears worrying. Mobile intelligence firm Sensor Tower reported earlier this month that daily active users on Threads dropped over 80 per cent since the platform’s launch, with only 8 million users using the app daily. There isn’t much data to also suggest there’s a rapid influx of new users signing up to join Threads since its web app launch. Similarweb speculates that much of the new Threads website visitors in the US were likely just older users moving from the app to the web. The Meta-owned app is continuing to test and roll out new features to woo in more users. The company is also starting to test keyword search in Australia and New Zealand. Mr Mosseri said the tests began on Thursday, and would expand to countries including the US “soon”. “Get excited – search is coming to Threads,” Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg posted on Threads along with a GIF of Vin Diesel from the Fast and Furious franchise saying, “I bet you gonna enjoy this.” Read More Threads launches on the web for everyone – apart from Europeans Musk admits X may be doomed to fail as new glitch wipes out pictures from former Twitter platform Twitter/X indicates it will start collecting ‘biometric information’ and ‘employment history’ Threads launches on the web for everyone – apart from Europeans Meta could finally launch Threads feature everyone is waiting for Elon Musk became ‘anti-woke’ because of his daughter’s gender transition, book claims

By Sam Nussey TOKYO Thai food delivery startup Line Man Wongnai has begun appointing advisors to prepare for

Broadcom forecast fourth-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates on Thursday, on worries bleak enterprise spending and stiff competition

Dell Technologies beat quarterly revenue expectations on Thursday, as it benefited from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom and