Google games numbers to make AI look less thirsty
Datacenters' drinking habit exaggerated, claims report comparing apples to oranges
AI's drinking habit has been grossly overstated, according to a newly published report from Google, which claims that software advancements have cut Gemini's water consumption per prompt to roughly five drops of water — substantially less than prior estimates.…
Paul Merton reveals it 'felt natural' falling in love with third wife Suki Webster six months after becoming a widower - as he explains how he found happiness after heartbreak
He was first married to actress Caroline Quentin , with the couple separating in 1997 after seven years of marriage. Three years later, he wed actress Sarah Parkinson.
How houses belonging to notorious killers flew off the market after grim murders...but which lair was the most expensive?
It's hard to imagine how Britain's most notorious killers ever blended in among their neighbours while pretending to live normal lives.
Tycoon slaughters estranged wife and daughter then kills himself at stunning $15m mansion after divorce got nasty
LA Sheriff's Office said all three people were found dead following the apparent murder-suicide in the gated community of Rolling Hills around 10:20am Saturday.
Flames, Smoke, Toxic Gas: The Danger of Battery Fires on Planes
"Delta Air Lines Flight 1334 was flying from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale last month when smoke and flames started pouring out of a backpack," reports CNN. "The pilots declared an emergency and diverted to Fort Meyers where the 191 people onboard safely evacuated."
The culprit was a passenger's personal lithium-ion battery pack, which had been tucked away in the carry-on bag. At the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center for Advanced Aerospace in Atlantic City, New Jersey, fire safety engineers research and demonstrate just how bad it can be. "Lithium batteries can go into what's called thermal runaway," Fire Safety Branch Manager Robert Ochs, explained. "All of a sudden, it'll start to short circuit ... It will get warmer and warmer and warmer until the structure of the battery itself fails. At that point, it can eject molten electrolyte and flames and smoke and toxic gas...."
These thermal runaways are difficult to fight. The FAA recommends flight attendants first use a halon fire extinguisher, which is standard equipment on planes, but that alone may not be enough. In the test performed for CNN, the flames sprung back up in just moments... "Adding the water, as much water from the galley cart, non-alcoholic liquids, everything that they can get to just start pouring on that device." The problems are not new, but more batteries are being carried onto planes than ever before. Safety organization UL Standards and Engagement says today an average passenger flies with four devices powered by lithium-ion batteries. "The incidents of fire are rare, but they are increasing. We're seeing as many as two per week, either on planes or within airports," Jeff Marootian, the president and CEO of the organization, told CNN...
[T]he latest federal data shows external battery packs are the top cause of incidents, and as a result the FAA has banned them from checked baggage where they are harder to extinguish. But despite all of the warnings, UL Standards and Engagement says two in five passengers still say they check them.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Asylum seeker living in Essex hotel 'called names' by worried residents
'I speak very good English but I've never heard the word "scumbag" until these people came along'
I can't hold my newborn baby because I've been diagnosed with cancer AGAIN
Gemma Small (pictured), 31, of the town of Horwich, Greater Manchester, received the awful diagnosis just after little Samuel (also pictured) was born in early February this year.
Mother-of-four faces £116,000 bill after chopping down 'magnificent' historic tree in her own garden
Former business director and mother-of-four Claire Rands, 54, must pay £116,000 for illegally chopping down a "magnificent" 70ft lime tree in her own garden after a 13-year battle.
The reason nearly 400,000 Germans are flocking to Cornwall's seaside towns every year... and it's nothing to do with Poldark or pasties
Around 350,000 German tourists visit Cornwall per year to see the filming locations of the popular British writer no one has ever heard of.
My husband died horrifically on our honeymoon. Our popular destination seemed idyllic, but it was secretly deadly: ZOE HOLOHAN
Zoe Holohan should have been able to cherish the memories of her wedding day for the rest of her life. Instead, they've become among the most painful she can recall.
Festival relocated to Essex due to 'quirky' nature, organiser says
It is set to be held in the new Essex location for the first time
Secret criminal past of 'Traveller King' who was buried in a 'six-figure, solid gold' coffin
A traveller 'King' buried in a 'six-figure' solid gold coffin can be revealed as the head of a notorious crime family who was jailed over one of Britain's biggest-ever cowboy building rackets.
Man arrested after Muslim woman and her child were 'racially abused' by people painting flags on buildings
Footage widely circulated on social media shows two topless men painting red crosses on the white walls of flats above a row of shops and restaurants on a high street in Basildon, Essex.
America's Secretive X-37B Space Plane Will Test a Quantum Alternative to GPS for the US Space Force
The mysterious X-37B space-plane — the U.S. military's orbital test vehicle — "serves partly as a platform for cutting-edge experiments," writes Space.com
And "one of these experiments is a potential alternative to GPS that makes use of quantum science as a tool for navigation: a quantum inertial sensor."
This technology could revolutionize how spacecraft, airplanes, ships and submarines navigate in environments where GPS is unavailable or compromised. In space, especially beyond Earth's orbit, GPS signals become unreliable or simply vanish. The same applies underwater, where submarines cannot access GPS at all. And even on Earth, GPS signals can be jammed (blocked), spoofed (making a GPS receiver think it is in a different location) or disabled — for instance, during a conflict... Traditional inertial navigation systems, which use accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure a vehicle's acceleration and rotation, do provide independent navigation, as they can estimate position by tracking how the vehicle moves over time... Eventually though, without visual cues, small errors will accumulate and you will entirely lose your positioning...
At very low temperatures, atoms obey the rules of quantum mechanics: they behave like waves and can exist in multiple states simultaneously — two properties that lie at the heart of quantum inertial sensors. The quantum inertial sensor aboard the X-37B uses a technique called atom interferometry, where atoms are cooled to the temperature of near absolute zero, so they behave like waves. Using fine-tuned lasers, each atom is split into what's called a superposition state, similar to Schrödinger's cat, so that it simultaneously travels along two paths, which are then recombined.
Since the atom behaves like a wave in quantum mechanics, these two paths interfere with each other, creating a pattern similar to overlapping ripples on water. Encoded in this pattern is detailed information about how the atom's environment has affected its journey. In particular, the tiniest shifts in motion, like sensor rotations or accelerations, leave detectable marks on these atomic "waves". Compared to classical inertial navigation systems, quantum sensors offer orders of magnitude greater sensitivity. Because atoms are identical and do not change, unlike mechanical components or electronics, they are far less prone to drift or bias. The result is long duration and high accuracy navigation without the need for external references.
The upcoming X-37B mission will be the first time this level of quantum inertial navigation is tested in space.
The article points out that a quantum navigation system could be crucial "for future space exploration, such as to the Moon, Mars or even deep space," where autonomy is key and when signals from Earth are unavailable.
"While quantum computing and quantum communication often steal headlines, systems like quantum clocks and quantum sensors are likely to be the first to see widespread use."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I spent £72k on my dream caravan... but within six months I was only going to get back a fraction of that - now I'm broke and too stressed to work
Katherine Upton, 48, remortgaged her house to purchase the £62k mobile home from a Haven holiday village in Sussex.
Jeering Dragons' Den panel called my business a 'delusional disaster' - now I'm worth £40million!
For those who walk away cash injections of tens of thousands of pounds, the daunting prospect of going on Dragon's Den is well worth the anxiety.
Is 'Saint' Peter Andre REALLY an angel? Katie Price's ex mocked her disabled son Harvey and told Junior not to kiss boys...as her mum reveals her true feelings about him
Peter Andre has long been portrayed as the nice guy after his short-lived marriage to glamour model Katie Price imploded - but the resurfacing of clips from their reality show has challenged that narrative.
Pregnant Sophie Habboo accidentally posts full frontal picture of husband Jamie Laing to fans as they enjoy romantic Bank Holiday weekend
The reality star, 30, had taken to Instagram to share a glimpse of her bank holiday weekend with fans as she enjoyed downtime with Jamie, 37.
Music Services Caught Streaming AI-Generated Albums Impersonating Real Singers
The BBC reports a growing trend in music: "for established (but not superstar) artists to be targeted by fake albums or songs that suddenly appear on their pages on Spotify and other streaming services."
Even dead musicians have had AI-generated "new" material added to their catalogues... According to music industry analysts Luminate, about 99,000 songs are uploaded to streaming services every day, usually via dozens of distribution services, which ask the uploader to submit the artist's details. If that information is incorrect, and a song wrongly gets listed under an existing artist's name, it's down to them or their label to complain and get it removed.
Spotify took three weeks to remove fakes of folk singer/songwriter Emily Portman, according to the article, "and she still hasn't regained control of her Spotify artist profile... Considering how the streaming era has already made a big dent in many artists' incomes, Emily Portman says this affair has felt like a "very low blow"... She suspects independent artists are being targeted because star names have more protection and more power to get fraudulent releases removed swiftly."
But it's also happened to "a number of Americana and folk-rock artists who have had fake tracks posted using their names in recent weeks — apparently all from the same source," including Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, J Tillman (now known as Father John Misty), Sam Beam (aka Iron & Wine), Teddy Thompson and Jakob Dylan:
All the releases used the same style of AI artwork and were credited to three record labels, two with apparently Indonesian names. Many listed the same name as a songwriter — Zyan Maliq Mahardika. That name has also been credited on other songs mimicking real US Christian musicians and metalcore bands. Spotify said it had flagged the issue with the distributor and removed these tracks as they "violated our policy against impersonating another person or brand." It added it would "remove any distributor who repeatedly allows this type of content on our platform"....
Tatiana Cirisano from media and technology analysis company Midia Research says AI is "making it easier for fraudsters" to fool listeners, who are also more "passive" in the algorithmic age. She thinks bad actors posing as real-life artists are hoping their fraudulent tracks will "rack up enough streams" — hundreds of thousands — to earn them a nice payday. "I would think that the AI fakes are targeting lesser-known artists in the hopes that their schemes fly under the radar, compared to if they were to target a superstar who could immediately get Spotify on the line," she notes.
But streaming services and distributors are "working hard" and getting better at spotting it, she stresses, "ironically, also by using AI and machine learning!
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Luisa Zissman continues to share defiant bikini snaps amid skinny-shaming row - after sparking fierce debate for revealing she smashed her childrens' iPads in front of them
The Apprentice star, 38, sparked controversy in recent weeks after sharing a selfie in a two-piece while on holiday, leading to comments regarding her weight.