News
Altman says AGI is closer than we think: but it’s no big deal
Humanity-saving OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is stepping back from his previous claims that artificial general intelligence (AGI) will basically save planet Earth.
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From check-in convenience to check-out chaos: Italy’s Airbnb crackdown
Italy’s new law means no more late-night check-ins at Airbnb properties. With tighter regulations looming, is this the end of an era for automated stays?
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OpenAI planning 12 days of shipmas
Festive time is indeed artificial, so what better way to celebrate than OpenAI’s announcement of a daily product or service being launched?
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Billionaire space enthusiast will lead NASA: but it’s not Musk
Incoming US president Donald Trump has nominated a billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut as his pick to lead NASA. The next few years seem set to be some of the most consequential in the agency’s history.
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Massive breach exposes major USAID contractor
Chemonics International had attackers roaming its systems for months, leading to hundreds of thousands of individuals having their personal details revealed.
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Zero screen time for kids under six, experts tell Spanish government
The report isn’t official yet, and it’s not clear what the Spanish government will decide. However, a panel of experts has told the cabinet that it should drastically limit minors’ exposure to digital devices such as smartphones.
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Unidentified flying object spotted near Trump’s golf course
Mysterious, car-sized drones have been spotted soaring over Morris County, New Jersey, sparking fear and curiosity among locals.
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Openwashing: most AI systems are actually closed, experts say
Sharing source code with the public should, in theory, spur innovation and democratize the use of tech tools. But in the field of AI, “open” models are hardly that, especially ones developed by major tech companies.
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Telegram wages war on child abusers
Telegram has joined the Internet Watch Foundation to help tackle the spread of child sexual abuse material on its platform.
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Latest damage to Finland-Sweden data cables caused by construction, not criminals, say authorities
The Finnish government on Tuesday said a data network outage caused by damage to two land-based communications cables between Finland and Sweden a day earlier was the result of construction work in the area.
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China bans exports of gallium, germanium, antimony, and other crucial minerals to the US
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has announced new export controls in response to the US-introduced restrictions on chipmaking equipment.
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Musk asks federal court to block OpenAI from becoming fully for-profit
It looks like Sam Altman is very high on Elon Musk’s list of enemies. The billionaire is asking a federal court to stop OpenAI from becoming a fully for-profit company.
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Did a Romanian fascist manipulate TikTok to take lead in race for presidency?
Effective social media strategies work in politics. But observers and critics say a far-right candidate from Romania, Calin Georgescu, might have manipulated TikTok with the help of thousands of bots to win the first round of the presidential elections.
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60% of online influencers don’t check accuracy of their material
Social media influencers, also known as digital content creators, need urgent help checking their facts before posting or broadcasting to their followers because they might be spreading misinformation, UNESCO has warned.
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Censorship online: Amazon US store restricts book sales to multiple countries
E-commerce giant Amazon is publicly committed to respecting human rights and freedom of expression, but new research has revealed that its American storefront is restricting the shipments of books on sensitive subjects to multiple countries.
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Misinformation on social media spreads faster and invites more moral outrage
Posts on social media containing misinformation evoke more moral outrage than factual information, a new study has found. Moreover, people are more likely to share the outrage-evoking hogwash without even reading it first.
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Australia bans social media for children: what’s in the bill?
The Australian Parliament has passed a controversial law hailed as “landmark” by the government and criticised as unworkable by Big Tech.
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Reddit elbows way up social media leaderboard as X trails behind
The US-born social media platform Reddit has reportedly overtaken X and is fast becoming the fifth most popular social media sites in the UK.
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It’s getting worse, and there is a word for it: “enshittification”
Disappointment in the many money-sucking ‘shitty’ digital services requires a word, and Australians have selected it as their word of the year.
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Elon Musk fuming over The Onion’s “very funny joke”
Infowars and Alex Jones’s other X accounts aren’t for sale, says Elon Musk's platform after The Onion bids on the bankrupt conspiracy theorist’s media empire.
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