What about the data we generate as content and art? It’s certainly not legal to copy someone else’s work and then present it as your own. But there are AI systems that attempt to scrape as much human-generated content from the web as possible in order to generate content that’s similar. Can GDPR or any other EU-centered policies protect this kind of content? As it turns out, like most things in the machine learning world, it depends on the data....

Your response to that might be “who cares?” — and the answer? You. You should care. Whether a pair of headphones is open- or closed-back makes a huge difference to the sound. Without any further messing around, let’s just jump straight in. Tell me, what are open-back headphones? The phrase “open-back” is pretty descriptive and gives you a clue on what to expect. Literally, the headphones’ enclosure (AKA the bit that goes around your ears) allows sound to travel through it....

The source of this signal, ASKAP J173608.2-’321635, does not seem to behave like an other known body which produces such radiation. It also cannot be seen in visible, infrared, or X-ray wavelengths — only in radio waves. “We have presented the discovery and characterization of ASKAP J173608.2-321635: a highly-polarized, variable radio source located near the Galactic Center and with no clear multi-wavelength counterpart. ASKAP J173608.2-321635 may represent part of a new class of objects being discovered through radio imaging surveys,” explain a team of researchers in The Astrophysical Journal....

As per a report by Times of India, in a court filing last month, NPCI told India’s top bank, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), that the Facebook-owned app is now complying with all norms. Last year, RBI had asked NPCI to ensure that WhatsApp meets all requirements. WhatsApp started its payments services as a trial more than two years ago in India, and has since been in the test mode with a million users....

While XR (extended reality) technologies have been hyped since 2014, it’s only now in the midst of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and global economic crisis that we are really seeing the true value of virtual, augmented, and mixed realities as vital to the future of business success. Across industries including healthcare, manufacturing, education, design, tourism, consumer goods, and marketing, XR is helping companies secure the competitive advantage needed to survive and thrive in the years to come....

And just as the British government launched its latest inquiry into the future of public service broadcasting, the UK has been turning to those same services for news, entertainment and reassurance. In the first three weeks of lockdown, the BBC saw viewer numbers increase by 23%, with more than a third of all television viewing on the corporation’s platforms. Nor is it just traditional broadcasters benefiting from the lockdown. By early April, Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+, had almost doubled its global subscriber numbers to 50 million, with a fortuitously timed launch in most major Western markets in March....

If website operators don’t properly adhere to the rules outlined in the act, they could face massive fines. In September, the Federal Trade Commission announced a record-breaking penalty against YouTube, in which the Google-owned service agreed to pay $170 million to settle alleged COPPA violations. But the law has also faced criticism, with some lawmakers and advocates arguing that it doesn’t go far enough. Here’s what it does and does not do....

The greatest threat posed to democracy in any free nation is that of ubiquitous government surveillance. Many countries today are struggling to find the proper balance between useful facial recognition and connected-camera technologies and those that threaten our privacy. We’re here to make it easy: Public-facing facial recognition or connected home-security camera systems that offer access to law enforcement are dangerous and should be banned outright. The problem with Ring These devices are positioned as security cameras....

Other stocks involved in the first wave of retail trading mania such as cinema group AMC Entertainment have followed a similar trajectory, doubling at one point and still almost 50% up on the calm of a few days earlier. So why are investors buying these stocks again? The army of millions of investors from Reddit’s WallStreetBets community pushed GameStop shares from US$20 to US$480 during the January “short squeeze”, in which they drove hedge funds like Melvin Capital into heavy losses, after forcing them to liquidate massive bets against the stock....

It’s easy to laugh at someone who believes the Earth is flat. Dunking on pro-diseasers (AKA: antivaxxers) has become one of the internet’s favorite sports. And it’s pretty posh by social media standards to ridicule anyone who questions whether the climate-crisis is real. There’s always going to be a small, vocal contingency of people who simply cannot be convinced of a ground truth. Whether these people deserve ridicule is a question for our personal consciences, but one thing is certain: they need to be educated....

The space agency, however, has recklessly overlooked Michael Bay’s ingenious idea of training oil drillers to become astronauts. Nor will the NASA nerds follow the director’s advice of blasting the rock with a nuclear bomb. Instead, they want to smack it with a spacecraft. Life disregarding art Smaller asteroids frequently strike Earth, but most burn up in the atmosphere before they reach our planet’s surface. That doesn’t mean we have nothing to fear, however....

Orbiting the young star V 1298 Tau, more than 350 light-years from Earth, at least four planets wind their way around their orbits in the developing solar system. These worlds huddle close to their stellar companion, which bathes the worlds in X-ray radiation. This pressure from the star likely strips the innermost pair of these worlds of any atmosphere which might develop, leaving them as bare balls of rock. The outer two worlds, however, may have climates that are far more complex....

There’s a woman in my neighborhood who I’ve never seen on foot. She has roller skates, and wears them everywhere. She wears them when she drops her kids off to school, does her grocery shopping, and, I assume, also to work. She definitely stands out, and it always puts a smile on my face, because why wouldn’t you always wear roller skates? They make getting around easy and fun. Why walk?...

But despite more than doubling in one day, Wirecard stock is still down 96% in June, having collapsed almost entirely since auditors discovered its $2.1 billion financial ‘black hole.’ The company said on Saturday it would continue operations as the scandal plays out. Munich prosecutors arrested Wirecard’s former CEO Markus Braun on suspicion of market manipulation and falsifying accounts after he turned himself in last week. Investigators continue to probe other execs for potential involvement....

Well, in iOS 16, that may no longer be a problem. Why? Because Apple is rolling out a feature called Automatic Verification that bypasses CAPTCHAs on certain websites and apps. The company has worked with Fastly and Cloudflare — two of the biggest content delivery networks (CDNs) — in order to verify that you’re actually, well, you when visiting a page. These two services support millions of websites, so there’s huge potential for this feature to positively impact your life....

According to recent findings from cryptocurrency researchers at Coin Metrics, around 300 entities hold about 80 percent of the Tether currently in circulation, Bloomberg reports. The figures show that 318 addresses hold $1 million or more in Tether. Compared to Bitcoin, where over 20,000 addresses hold at least $1 million, Tether appears much more centralized. “The concentration of Tether suggests that control of [the stablecoin] is in the hands of a few central players who can swing Bitcoin prices, and have a vested interest in doing so,” John Griffin, a finance professor at University of Texas at Austin, told Bloomberg....

There is a catch, though: you must own GWENT on PC already in order to be eligible. That’s not a huge hardship, as the game is free on GOG, but it is a little annoying if you have no intention of playing the card game and only want the RPG. You’ll have to sign up for GOG’s newsletter, but if you do, you’ll get a free copy of the first Witcher game, as well as a card pack in GWENT....

The Seattle-based tech giant originally unveiled plans for the browser at its annual BUILD developers conference held on May 6. The browser is based on Google’s open-source Chromium rendering engine, which also powers other popular browsers like Chrome, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi, among others. The interface will be a lot familiar if you already use Google Chrome. It means you can install Chrome extensions on Edge to augment your browser’s capabilities....

The Business of Mobility is an Urban Mobility Company series highlighting some of the most successful new businesses in the mobility sector. Featuring a closer look at the way in which companies stand out, CEOs, Directors and other c-level executives elaborate on what it takes to turn a great idea into a great company. Scheherazade wites about Keolis’s recent project for Île-de-France Mobilités (the Public Transit Authority, or PTA, for the Greater Paris region) and discusses the challenges and possibilities for autonomous shuttles to meet public transport demand....

Their response came with some web links and “do your own research”. I then asked about their research methodology, which turned out to be searching for specific terms on Google. As an academic, I was intrigued. Academic research aims to establish the truth of a phenomenon based on evidence, analysis , and peer review. On the other hand, a search on Google provides links with content written by known or unknown authors, who may or may not have knowledge in that area, based on a ranking system that either follows the preferences of the user, or the collective popularity of certain sites....