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AI in games has long been geared towards improving computer-controlled opponents. Will it soon create diverse characters we can talk to instead of just shoot? In May, as part of an otherwise unremarkable corporate strategy meeting, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida made an interesting announcement. The company’s artificial intelligence research division, Sony AI, would be collaborating …

Think, fight, feel: how video game artificial intelligence is evolving Read More »

Using a name inspired by Indonesian farmers, Subak will share information and fund hi-tech solutions to fight global heating As monikers go, Subak may seem an odd choice for a new organisation that aims to accelerate hi-tech efforts to combat the climate crisis. The name is Indonesian, it transpires, and refers to an ancient agricultural …

How data could save Earth from climate change Read More »

Sustainable alternatives to livestock farming are being held back by patents, a reluctance to share research and lack of government support Not a week goes by without Elliot Swartz receiving at least one request from researchers asking him where they can find cell lines (a cell culture developed from a single cell) for use in …

Secrets and pies: the battle to get lab-grown meat on the menu Read More »

Dominic Spooner’s startup Vaulta is working on a reusable battery casing to create less waste and a lighter product As some of the world’s largest companies invest billions to advance battery technology, Dominic Spooner has been working at solving the next problem: the impact of unwieldy – and environmentally unfriendly – battery casings. Spooner runs …

‘Lightbulb moment’: the battery technology invented in a Brisbane garage that is going global Read More »

Amol Rajan’s questioning failed to get behind the defences of Sundar Pichai’s ‘nice guy’ media image Last weekend, in what the BBC clearly regarded as important news, the corporation announced that its media editor, Amol Rajan, had been granted an interview with Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Alphabet (which basically means Google). It was …

The BBC’s interviewer found himself on a sticky wicket with Google’s CEO Read More »

Joe Biden says social media platforms such as Facebook ‘are killing people’ for allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted. ‘Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people,’ the US president told reporters at the White House on Friday. ‘They’re killing people’: Biden slams Facebook for Covid disinformation …

Biden says Covid-19 misinformation is ‘killing people’ – video Read More »

With a new generation fuelling fashion, protest and popular culture, is it time for millennials like me to move over? A panel of young trailblazers give me a glow up – and some lessons in activism I am sitting cross-legged on the floor, wearing a bucket hat, trying to be chill. I rest my chin …

Do I look cheugy in this? What can a gen Z makeover teach me about life? Read More »

Social media giants contribute to global conflicts and allow misinformation. How have they gained so much control, and what is that doing to our lives? It’s good to remember that every time Mark Zuckerberg claims that he founded Facebook in order to connect people or build communities, he is somehow forgetting that he first created …

Social Warming by Charles Arthur review – a coolly prosecutorial look at social media Read More »

Alliances are shifting as states led by China and Russia compete with the US and tech entrepreneurs Liu Boming took in the dizzy view. Around him lay the inky vastness of space. Below was the Earth. “Wow,” he said, laughing. “It’s too beautiful out here.” Over the next seven hours Liu and his colleague Tang …

The space race is back on – but who will win? Read More »

Additional emojis will complete Unicode’s drive to offer more variety and gender-neutral options A pregnant man, a multiracial handshake and a face that cannot bear to watch are some of the emojis that will hit devices over the next year, according to a draft list published by the Unicode Consortium, which approves icons for use. …

Pregnant man and multiracial handshake emojis approved for launch Read More »