Author: zppiot
We live in an age of alternate facts. More and more Americans are getting their information almost entirely from outlets that echo their own political point of view. And then, of course, there’s social media, where there are few (if any) filters between users and a wide world of misinformation.For example: On July 13 a sniper came within inches of assassinating Donald Trump as he addressed an outdoor rally in Pennsylvania. Within minutes, social media was alive with uninformed speculation. One woman posted, “Who did it? I bet you it was the government themselves. They’re all on the same side.”Koppel…
Boeing’s Starliner returns safely to Earth, but without crew – CBS News Watch CBS News Early Saturday morning, a chapter of the ongoing space saga involving two U.S. astronauts came to a close when Boeing’s Starliner capsule returned to earth from the International Space Station, but with no one aboard. Mark Strassmann has the latest. Be the first to know Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Not Now Turn On #Boeings #Starliner #returns #safely #Earth #crew
We’re giving away 25 complimentary virtual (livestream) tickets to EmTech MIT, our flagship event on emerging technologies and trends. Winners will get a complimentary livestream ticket, that includes livestream access to the event on MIT campus from September 30 – October 1, 2024 plus on-demand access for three months after the event. You’ll hear from technology and business leaders, such as Rivian Founder & CEO, RJ Scaringe, Google Cloud CTO, Will Grannis, Slack CEO, Denise Dresser, and MIT VP of Research, Ian Waitz, about the business impacts of generative AI and climate tech on profitability and sustainability. Here’s what to expect…
On Monday, Apple is expected to reveal its iPhone 16 models along with other new products, in a livestreamed event called “It’s Glowtime.” The latest generation of iPhones will mark what one analyst called Apple’s “biggest upgrade cycle in its history.”The event is scheduled to take place on September 9 at 1 p.m. Eastern time at the tech company’s Cupertino, California, headquarters. All eyes will be on Apple’s latest line of iPhones, all models of which will be powered by Apple Intelligence — Apple’s response to the generative AI revolution — which will be integrated into iOS 18, according to an…
Roblox’s new tool works by “tokenizing” the 3D blocks that make up its millions of in-game worlds, or treating them as units that can be assigned a numerical value on the basis of how likely they are to come next in a sequence. This is similar to the way in which a large language model handles words or fractions of words. If you put “The capital of France is …” into a large language model like GPT-4, for example, it assesses what the next token is most likely to be. In this case, it would be “Paris.” Roblox’s system handles…
Nickel may not grow on trees—but there’s a chance it could someday be mined using plants. Many plants naturally soak up metal and concentrate it in their tissues. The US government is now spending $9.9 million funding research on how to use that trait for plant-based mining, or phytomining. It could be a good new way to source increasingly in-demand metals like nickel, crucial for the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. But for now, the goal is just to better understand which plants could help with mining and determine how researchers can tweak them to get our hands on…
Metals like nickel, crucial for the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, are in high demand. But building new mines to meet that demand can be difficult because the mining industry has historically faced community backlash, often over environmental concerns. New mining technologies could help diversify the supply of crucial metals and potentially offer alternatives to traditional mines. “Everyone wants to talk about opening a new gigafactory, but no one wants to talk about opening a new mine,” says Philseok Kim, program director at ARPA-E for the phytomining project. The agency saw a need for sustainable, responsible new mining technologies,…
Last month, two young paddleboarders found themselves stranded in the ocean, pushed 2,000 feet from the shore by strong winds and currents. Thanks to the deployment of a drone, rescuers kept an eye on them the whole time and safely brought them aboard a rescue boat within minutes.In North Carolina, the Oak Island Fire Department is one of a few in the country using drone technology for ocean rescues. Firefighter-turned-drone pilot Sean Barry explained the drone’s capabilities as it was demonstrated on a windy day. “This drone is capable of flying in all types of weather and environments,” Barry said. Equipped…
“Open source is critical,” says David Harmon, director of software engineering for AMD. “It provides an environment of collaboration and technical advancements. Savvy users can look at the code themselves; they can evaluate it; they can review it and know that the code that they’re getting is legit and functional for what they’re trying to do.” But OSS can also compromise an organization’s security posture by introducing hidden vulnerabilities that fall under the radar of busy IT teams, especially as cyberattacks targeting open source are on the rise. OSS may contain weaknesses, for example, that can be exploited to gain…
Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is used in high-voltage equipment on the grid. It’s also, somewhat inconveniently, a monster greenhouse gas.Greenhouse gases are those that trap heat in the atmosphere. SF6 and other fluorinated gases can be thousands of times more powerful at warming the planet than carbon dioxide, and yet, because they tend to escape in relatively small amounts, we hardly ever talk about them.Taken alone, their effects might be minor compared with those of carbon dioxide, but together, these gases add significantly to the challenge of addressing climate change.Casey Crownhart, our senior climate reporter, has drawn up a quick cheat…
Greenhouse gases are those that trap heat in the atmosphere. SF6 and other fluorinated gases can be thousands of times more powerful at warming the planet than carbon dioxide, and yet, because they tend to escape in relatively small amounts, we hardly ever talk about them. Taken alone, their effects might be minor compared with those of carbon dioxide, but together, these gases add significantly to the challenge of addressing climate change. For more on the specifics of sulfur hexafluoride, check out my story from earlier this week. And in the meantime, here’s a quick cheat sheet on the most…
Online scams reach new heights as FBI reports record surge – CBS News Watch CBS News The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center saw more than 880,000 complaints last year, a 10% increase from 2022. Dan Ackerman, editor-in-chief of Micro Center News, joins “CBS Mornings” to discuss the rise of these threats. Be the first to know Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Not Now Turn On #Online #scams #reach #heights #FBI #reports #record #surge
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The UK is building an alarm system for climate tipping points The news: The UK’s new moonshot research agency just launched an £81 million ($106 million) program to develop early warning systems to sound the alarm if Earth gets perilously close to crossing climate tipping points. How they’re doing it: The teams the agency supports will work toward three goals: developing low-cost sensors to provide more precise data about the conditions of these systems; deploying those and other…
The Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) will announce today that it’s seeking proposals to work on systems for two related climate tipping points. One is the accelerating melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which could raise sea levels dramatically. The other is the weakening of the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre, a huge current rotating counterclockwise south of Greenland that may have played a role in triggering the Little Ice Age around the 14th century. The goal of the five-year program will be to reduce scientific uncertainty about when these events could occur, how they would affect the planet and the…
With each shot requiring a new set of prompts, it’s also hard to instill a sense of continuity throughout a video. The color, angle of the sun, and shapes of buildings are difficult for a video generation model to keep consistent. The video also lacks any close-ups of people, which Kahn says AI models still tend to struggle with. “These technologies are always better on large-scale things right now as opposed to really nuanced human interaction,” he says. For this reason, Kahn imagines that early filmmaking applications of generative video might be for wide shots of landscapes or crowds. Alex…
MIT Technology Review has published its Innovators Under 35 list since 1999. The first edition was created for our 100th anniversary and was meant to give readers a glimpse into the future, by highlighting what some of the world’s most talented young scientists are working on today. This year, we’re celebrating our 125th anniversary and honoring this 25th class of innovators with the same goal in mind. (Note: The 2024 list will be made available exclusively to subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber, you can sign up here.)Keep an eye on The Download newsletter next week for our announcement of…