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- Written by: Mike Leary
- Category: Tech
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has reached a major agreement with authors in a case that has drawn international attention. The firm will pay $1.5bn (£1.11bn) to settle a class action lawsuit over claims it used pirated books to train its Claude AI chatbot. The settlement, awaiting approval by US District Judge William Alsup, has been described by the authors’ lawyers as the largest publicly-reported copyright recovery in history.
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- Written by: Mike Leary
- Category: Tech
On sunny days, people often reach for sunglasses, but not all pairs provide the same level of safety. Reflections from water, car hoods or glass surfaces can cause glare that reduces visibility and increases risk. At the same time, invisible ultraviolet radiation threatens long-term eye health. Experts such as physicist Liliane Ventura from the University of São Paulo and optical engineer José Toschi from Suntech Supplies in Brazil explain how lenses protect our vision.
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- Written by: Mike Leary
- Category: Tech
A London-based company has unveiled a new voice-cloning technology capable of accurately replicating a broad spectrum of British regional accents, aiming to improve diversity in synthetic speech. The tool, developed by Synthesia, addresses long-standing limitations in artificial voice training, particularly the overrepresentation of North American and southern English pronunciations.
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- Written by: Mike Leary
- Category: Tech
Modern life is intertwined with smartphones and social media, bringing immense convenience and connectivity. However, these technologies also raise serious questions about privacy and personal data as well as how they affect our brains and relationships. Our smartphones quietly harvest vast amounts of information about us, and our social media feeds are engineered to keep us scrolling. This article delves into two critical aspects of our digital lives: (1) Smartphones and Privacy: How Much Do Our Apps Know About Us? and (2) How Social Media Changes Our Brains and Social Relationships. We will explore location tracking, data mining by apps, privacy rights, the neuroscience of endless scrolling, and the impacts of social media on mental health, attention span, and human connections.