Uci news

In spring 2023, OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, told the US Congress that one of his worst fears was that artificial intelligence (AI) technology would “cause significant harm to the world”. It was a stark message to all those listening regarding the potential power and possible danger of AI. It was also a wake-up call to governments to sit up, take notice and learn lessons from the failure to regulate social media when it became widespread over a decade ago. The call for regulation of AI is not just being heard by those involved in developing AI software. Governments are concerned about the technology’s rapid growth, its impact on the spread of misinformation, the threat it poses to consumer privacy, and the mass collection of personal data. In a recent article, cybersecurity company and virtual private network provider, ExpressVPN explored how deep fakes created using an AI process known as deep learning, are becoming increasingly hard to detect. While the recent AI-generated image of...

As anyone who has seen Disney’s The Jungle Book will be aware that Louie, the orangutan leader and king of the swingers, can hold a serious tune. And while real orangutans don’t quite possess the pipes to rival Louie, they do have an impressive vocal talent: they can make two separate sounds at the same time , much like a human beatboxer. Researchers from the University of Warwick made the discovery after observing two populations of vocalising orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra for a total of 3,800 hours. They found that large male orangutans in Borneo make sounds known as ‘chomps’ and ‘grumbles’ when they get into disputes. Meanwhile, females in Sumatra let out sounds known as ‘kiss squeaks’ and ‘rolling calls’ to alert others of potential predators. In both cases the apes were capable of making both sounds at the same time, a technique used by human beatboxers to mimic electronic drum machines and other instruments. “Humans use the lips, tongue, and jaw to make the unvoiced sou...

The Royal Observatory Greenwich has announced its shortlisted images for Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2023 . Shortlisted images from this year’s competition include star trails over the Vimy First World War trench memorial in northern France, the Milky Way over a 12th Century castle in North Wales, and Jupiter flanked by two of its moons, Io and Europa. The winners of the competition’s nine categories, two special prizes and the overall winner will be announced on 14 September 2023. The winning images will be displayed, along with a selection of exceptional shortlisted images, in an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum London from Saturday 16 September 2023. The competition is run by Royal Observatory Greenwich, supported by Liberty Specialty Markets and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine . Planets, comets and asteroids Dance of the Moons: Jupiter is flanked by two of its many moons, Io and Europa. Europa is the icy white moon casting a shadow onto the ‘s...

You know what they say: fashion works in a seven-year cycle. What you once decided was done and dusted, ready to be cast aside in favour of a shiny new accessory, might just come back with a vengeance. While wireless earbuds are truly mainstream, wired earbuds have slipped back into social media feeds. Somehow, in the most Generation Z way possible, they’ve entered the same lane as vinyl, record players , CDs and VHS and become “retro”. While wireless earbuds are undoubtedly slick, impressive pieces of modern tech, we can understand why some favour the wired version―aside from just pure aesthetics. They’re less easily lost, often cheaper and don’t need charging. If you’re looking to roll back the years (okay, four years at most), we’ve listed our picks of the best wired earbuds on the market. For a few of these, you may need an aux cord adaptor, as many flagship phones have cut their aux inputs over the last several years. For more “retro” picks, check out our list of the 10 best ...

With a body around 16m (52ft) long, teeth the size of hardback books and a bite three times as powerful as a T.rex’ s, there’s little doubt the megalodon shark was one of the most terrifying creatures to have ever lived. No wonder it has fascinated scientists and storytellers since its discovery in 1835. But much about the ancient shark has remained a mystery. The reason behind such a successful apex predator going extinct around 3.6 million years ago has proven to be particularly baffling. Now, a team of environmental scientists based at UCLA, UC Merced and William Paterson University, USA think they have the answer: it was a warm-blooded animal that lived in increasingly colder seas. “Maintaining an energy level that would allow for megalodon’s elevated body temperature would require a voracious appetite. That may not have been sustainable in a time of changing marine ecosystem balances when it may have even had to compete against newcomers such as the great white shark,” said c...

In the past year, AI art has gone from research papers to niche fads, all the way through to internet-dominating tools producing millions of images a day. However, to reach this point, these models had to be trained. This training routine involves a hugely comprehensive deep-dive of the internet, scanning billions of images along with their corresponding descriptive text. Not only did that raise some major ethical questions around copyright, it also begs one question for the future: what happens when the internet becomes flooded with images made by artificial intelligence? As these models continue to train, scouring the internet, they will undoubtedly be trained on images they first created. Does that cause some sort of self-perpetuating loop of weirder and weirder images, or will nothing actually change? The loss of creativity Midjourney generation of a woman in golden hour “AI will eventually start training on its own work – it’s expected to happen. That will essentially le...

The dial tone was introduced when we transitioned from human switchboard operators to automated telephone switching exchanges on the public switched telephone network (PSTN), more than a hundred years ago. Its purpose was to indicate to the phone user that the exchange was ready to accept the number, hence the name ‘dial tone’. Cellular telephone services, which don’t use the PSTN, don’t generate dial tones. Our mobile phones wait for us to type the entire number before connecting and transmitting it at once. Your mobile might imitate a dial tone to make you feel comfortable, but it’s not performing the function it does for a landline phone. Over the years, the PSTN has grown to connect the world, with wired connections everywhere, but it’s now unsuited to handle voice, video and data. To help keep things more manageable and future-proof, the UK is switching off its PSTN in December 2025 , with all services switching to the internet . This is the biggest change to our phone network ...