Month: September 2024

Meta’s global affairs chief points to ‘behavioural issue’ around child safety tools on the social media platforms Parents do not use parental controls on Facebook and Instagram, according to Meta’s Nick Clegg, with adults failing to embrace the 50 child safety tools the company has introduced in recent years. Meta’s global affairs chief said there …

Parents ‘don’t use’ parental controls on Facebook and Instagram, says Nick Clegg Read More »

With storms becoming more frequent due to the climate crisis, insurers are forcing operators to respond One of the least considered hazards of climate change is the increasing frequency of hailstorms and the size and the impact of the pieces of ice they produce. This, in turn, threatens one of the most promising solutions to …

Technology helping solar farms counter growing hailstone threat Read More »

‘Strawberry’ models can break down complex problems into smaller logical steps, an area where other AIs stumble OpenAI said on Thursday it was launching its “Strawberry” series of AI models designed to spend more time processing answers to queries in order to solve hard problems. The models are capable of reasoning through complex tasks and …

OpenAI to launch models with ‘reasoning’ abilities that are ‘much like a person’ Read More »

Research challenges conventional wisdom that evidence and arguments rarely help to change believers’ minds Whether it is the mistaken idea that the moon landings never happened or the false claim that Covid jabs contain microchips, conspiracy theories abound, sometimes with dangerous consequences. Now researchers have found that such beliefs can be altered by a chat …

AI can change belief in conspiracy theories, study finds Read More »

In this week’s newsletter: Eight years and many millions of dollars in the making, the latest high-profile multiplayer flop points to an existential problem in game development • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here As is now traditional, right after I’d filed last week’s Pushing Buttons, huge gaming news broke: …

Sony’s big-budget hero shooter Concord failed spectacularly – here’s where it went wrong Read More »

When the Grok tool gave false information, a collection of election officials sprang into action to tamp it down Soon after Joe Biden announced he was ending his bid for re-election, misinformation started spreading online about whether a new candidate could take the president’s place. Screenshots that claimed a new candidate could not be added …

X’s AI chatbot spread voter misinformation – and election officials fought back Read More »

In this week’s newsletter: Radio host Carmel Holt explores the singer’s cross-generational impact in The Road to Joni. Plus: five of the best podcasts about the future • Don’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Joanne McNally Investigates … Did Furbys Spy on Us? BBC Sounds, episodes weekly Why were 90s …

Best podcasts of the week: How Joni Mitchell changed music – and America Read More »

Book-style foldable is just like a regular phone when closed but opens to reveal large and bright tablet screen Google has cracked the foldable formula on its second attempt by creating a slightly chunkier Pixel 9 Pro that opens up for a large 8in tablet screen on the inside, beating Samsung at its own game. …

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold review: the ideal foldable phone design Read More »

An international writing organisation appeared to greenlight the use of AI, prompting anger, the resignation of four board members and an entire creative community to ask: ‘What?!’ Please spare a thought for artificial intelligence (AI). It may not have feelings yet but, if it did, it would feel devastated by all the nasty things people …

Are novelists who worry about the rise of AI really ‘classist and ableist’? | Arwa Mahdawi Read More »

PC; Strange Scaffold Deep in the woods, hardbitten spec ops soldiers are having a proper falling out in this gleeful piece of pulp brilliance Harding and Burkin might sound like a law firm, but these two go way back on the battlefield. Harding was the brilliant spec ops guy who could get anything done, no …

I Am Your Beast review – like Rambo on fast-forward Read More »