The idea of artificial general intelligence as we know it today starts with a dot-com blowout on Broadway. Twenty years ago—before Shane Legg clicked with neuroscience postgrad Demis Hassabis over a shared fascination with intelligence; before the pair hooked up with Hassabis’s childhood friend Mustafa Suleyman, a progressive activist, to spin that fascination into a […]
Author: nafees
Leak: AirTags Ready for Launch Alongside iOS 14.3, AirPods Studio Delayed
Apple was expected to announce the AirPods Studio and its Tile-like trackers AirTags alongside the iPhone 12 at its October event. However, a few days before the event, rumors started circulating that the AirPods Studio launch has been delayed and that AirTags will launch in November. Apple’s ‘Hi, Speed’ event earlier this week was largely […]
AI Reads Human Emotions. Should it?
AI can read your emotional response to advertising and your facial expressions in a job interview. But if it can already do all this, what happens next? In part two of a series on emotion AI, Jennifer Strong and the team at MIT Technology Review explore the implications of how it’s used and where it’s […]
HomePod Users Will Soon be Able to Set Apple Music Songs as Alarm
Apple finally launched the HomePod mini at the “Hi, Speed” event. The latest HomePod features a spherical design and is much more affordable at $99. Apple has added a new HomePod feature to make it easier for you to get up in the morning. Until now, HomePod users could set the alarm on the smart […]
iPhone X vs iPhone 12: Should You Upgrade?
The iPhone X was ahead of its time when it first launched in 2017. Three years later, while it is still a pretty good phone, there’s no denying the fact that it is a bit old in the run. If you own an iPhone X and are wondering if the upgrade to the iPhone 12 […]
A NASA spacecraft is about to scoop up some asteroid rubble
Since December 2018, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been orbiting the asteroid Bennu and trying to find out more about its chemistry and geology. And for good reason: “Bennu is a time capsule,” says Thomas Zurbuchen, the head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “It has been out there for 4.5 billion years, and carries the history […]
Room-temperature superconductivity has been achieved for the first time
Room-temperature superconductors—materials that conduct electricity with zero resistance without needing special cooling—are the sort of technological miracle that would upend daily life. They could revolutionize the electric grid and enable levitating trains, among many other potential applications. But until now, superconductors have had to be cooled to extremely low temperatures, which has restricted them to […]
Capitalism is in crisis. To save it, we need to rethink economic growth.
Even before the covid-19 pandemic and the resulting collapse of much the world’s economy, a crisis in capitalism was plainly evident. Unfettered free markets had pushed inequality of income and wealth to extremely high levels in the United States. Slow productivity growth in many rich countries had stunted financial opportunities for a generation. Businesses, if […]
Governments are using the pandemic as an excuse to restrict internet freedom
The news: Global internet freedom has declined for the 10th year in a row as governments use the coronavirus pandemic as cover to restrict people’s rights, according to a report by think tank Freedom House. Its researchers assessed 65 countries, accounting for 87% of internet users worldwide. The report covers the period from June 2019 […]
A man caught coronavirus twice—and it was worse the second time
The news: A man in the US caught covid-19 for a second time in the space of just two months, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. That makes him the fifth person to have officially caught the coronavirus twice, after cases recorded in Hong Kong, Belgium, Ecuador, and the Netherlands (and […]