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New research on the spread of online misinformation and disinformation in Ireland has revealed that the influence of the far right is growing. The study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) also shows that tech companies are failing to enforce community guidelines to curb the spread of false, misleading and harmful content on social media platforms. The research, entitled “Uisce Faoi Thalamh: An Investigation into the Online Mis- and Disinformation Ecosystem in Ireland”, analyzed more than 13 million posts from 1,640 accounts across 12 online platforms between January 2020 and April 2023. […] According to the research, far-right groups...

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., says the Biden campaign should not use TikTok for their 2024 campaign because of the national security threats it poses to the U.S., pointing out that the president banned TikTok on U.S. government devices. SEN. TOM COTTON: It's not just that governors have banned it [TikTok], Joe Biden has banned it. We passed legislation last year that banned TikTok on U.S. Government devices. Yet, Joe Biden's campaign is now thinking, apparently, about going on to TikTok. So just think about that. You have all of these senior aides at the White House who carry two phones,...

@elonmusk As I said earlier this week, “decolonization”, “from the river to the sea” and similar euphemisms necessarily imply genocide. Clear calls for extreme violence are against our terms of service and will result in suspension.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These two graphs show data from NASA GISTEMP, which is most often cited global temperature anomaly graph from the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) for the entire globe, but done two ways. The top graph shows the magnified temperature anomaly, and the bottom graph shows the actual temperature as measured on the scale of normal human weather experience, typically 0° to 120° Fahrenheit. The point of this display is to illustrate that if there were not statistical techniques such as anomaly analysis and scale amplification, humans would not likely be able to detect the mild rise in...

The most exciting thing about the Top500 rankings of supercomputers that come out each June and November is not who is on the top of the list. That’s fun and interesting, of course, but the real thing about the Top500 is the architectural lessons it gives us when we see new systems emerge on the Top500 and we get to see how choices of compute, memory, interconnect, storage, and budget all play out at a system level and across nations and industries.We would normally walk through the top ten machines on the list and then delve into the statistics...

A top executive from the company behind the voting machines that “flipped votes” in Pennsylvania on Tuesday has admitted that “someone from our team programmed the election.”The voting machine issued caused votes in an eastern Pennsylvania county to appear to be “flipped” on a ballot question, officials said Tuesday.Voters were asked to decide whether Pennsylvania Superior Court Judges Jack Panella and Victor Stabile should be retained for additional 10-year terms.The “yes” or “no” votes for each judge were switched on a summary displayed to voters before they cast their ballot, said Charles Dertinger, the Northampton County director of administration.If a...

The CEO of Rockstar owner Take-Two has talked about changing the way video games are paid for. Grand Theft Auto 6’s first trailer is fast approaching, after developer Rockstar announced it’ll reveal the first glimpse of the game in ‘early December’. Exactly when is still unknown, but The Game Awards on the 8th seem a strong possibility. The game’s price is also of interest, although it’ll almost certainly cost £69.99, which is what most new AAA games are priced at now. But during a recent investment call Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that big budget video games should be more...

Findings raise concerns about the ease of generating false medical evidenceThe latest version of ChatGPT was able to create an entirely fake dataset -- one that showed better results for one ophthalmic procedure over another, a research letter in JAMA Ophthalmologyopens in a new tab or window showed. As prompted, GPT-4 with its "Advanced Data Analysis" technology made up the data and showed a significantly better post-operative best spectacle-corrected visual acuity (BSCVA) and topographic cylinder for deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) compared with penetrating keratoplasty (PK) (P<0.001), according to Giuseppe Giannaccare, MD, PhD, of the University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro...

An Alabama prisoner who was allegedly killed after he was raped and tortured by another inmate leaves behind his fiancée, Amber Williams, and an infant daughter. Daniel Williams, 22, had been serving a 12-month prison sentence for second-degree theft at Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore, Alabama, when a warden found him unresponsive in his cell on October 22. After the prison initially said that Williams suffered a 'drug overdose,' his family was informed by a nurse that Williams had been 'kidnapped, bound, assaulted and sold out' by another inmate for 'two or three days.'

Palantir Technologies (PLTR.N) has cultivated a powerful mythos worthy of being named for a crystal ball from “The Lord of the Rings.” The data-analysis company co-founded by Peter Thiel and run by Alex Karp fetches a big premium to most of its peers. Financial realities, however, suggest the valuation is the stuff of science fiction. Demand is quickly rising for software using artificial intelligence that can make sense out of voluminous and disparate data to flag suspicious financial transactions or defend against military attacks. Yet Palantir’s top line is only expected to grow 16% this year, according to forecasts gathered...

The Australian Government has recently introduced in Parliament a new law proposal to ban officially unapproved online content. Digital companies are expected to adopt a code of conduct which will see them censor speech based on broad, vague and far-reaching directives.The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 foreshadows the imposition of a legal obligation on digital platforms to police alleged ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’. If that does not work, the law proposal provides for the full empowerment of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to directly intervene for the purpose of preventing ‘harm’.Section 2 of the proposed...

I've used FIREFOX with almost no problems for 5 or 6 years, but a month ago, I started getting annoying glitches, so I switched to EDGE.It's not much different, but I had to input all my task bar data individually AND all my short cut hyperlinks in the search mode.I have always cleared my cache and history before cleaning (defrag) with GLARY UTILITIES, again with no problems.A week ago I noticed I was booting up with my task bar empty except for the factory settings.I switched back to FIREFOX and it still glitches.Where do I look to see what is...

WASHINGTON (TND) — Now is a good time to check that $2 bill stuffed away in a drawer or old wallet. The unique currency has been in circulation since the 1860s but some people are finding them to be upwards of $4,500, according to U.S. Currency Auctions. Several editions of the bill have been in circulation with the most recent being designed in 1963, the U.S. Treasury Department notes. Some feature Thomas Jefferson's face, Alexander Hamilton or America's first secretary of the treasury. A bill's worth depends on several factors including if it was in circulation. Uncirculated bills with red...

Maybe this hiker should have Googled where he could buy a paper map. A hiker had to be rescued via helicopter in British Columbia after he got lost — because he followed a made-up trail on Google Maps. It was the second time in two months that a hiker got lost relying on the high-tech map app ... stranded on a cliff on the backside of Mt. Fromme, just north of Vancouver, after attempting to reach the peak’s summit. A pair of rescuers were brought in by air and dropped into the heavily forested area during the Nov. 4 rescue....

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has improved its detection of cosmic events by overcoming quantum noise through advanced “squeezing” technology. This breakthrough will increase its detection rate by 60 percent and pave the way for advancements in quantum technology and physics. Researchers using LIGO achieved a landmark in quantum squeezing. In 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, made history when it made the first direct detection of gravitational waves, or ripples in space and time, produced by a pair of colliding black holes. Since then, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded LIGO and its sister detector in...

Cheating on college campuses has always been an arms race. But ChatGPT has upended the balance, and now no one knows for sure what or who is on the level. Is a BA worth anything if it’s all BS?Scott Limmer has been a defense attorney in Nassau County for nearly a quarter of a century. Solidly built, with salt-and-pepper hair and a booming Long Island accent, Limmer is the kind of guy who can make anyone feel comfortable, including the criminal defendants who are the bread and butter of his practice. Or at least they used to be. Lately, college...

In March, Senator Rand Paul blocked an attempt to ban TikTok from being used in the United States. This week, he did it again. Ten months ago it was Republican Senator Josh Hawley who wanted a ban. On Wednesday, it was Hawley again. Hawley requested unanimous consent to pass his bill that would basically prevent TikTok from being used in the United States by imposing sanctions on TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Limited, citing alleged privacy violations he believes constitute a national security threat. Paul objected, thinking the ban was a stupid idea. He pointed out that banning the app, which...

The mogul also spoke to the need for more deals with the Disney-Charter bundle: “All media better figure out how to get together with old distribution and save each other’s ass."Liberty Global chairman John Malone said he was “ringing the alarm” on big tech’s entrance into the media ecosystem, saying they will “erode” the broadcast industry. Speaking at the Paley Media Summit in Manhattan Wednesday, Malone, a billionaire investor, pointed to Amazon’s purchase of Thursday Night Football as an example of an “upside down regulatory world,” which he said allows tech platforms like Amazon, who have deep pockets and don’t...

The robotic arm, confusing the man for a box of vegetables, grabbed him and pushed his body against the conveyer belt, crushing his face and chest... According to Yonhap, the robot was responsible for lifting boxes of peppers and transferring them onto pallets. The man had been checking the robot's sensor operations ahead of its test run at the pepper sorting plant in South Gyeongsang province, scheduled for 8 November, the agency adds, quoting police. The test had been originally been planned for 6 November, but was pushed back by two days due to problems with the robot's sensor.

18GB of RAM in a smartphone? It's no secret that modern Android phones often pack unnecessary specs - I'm looking at you, 108MP cameras and 4K screens - and the new Nubia Red Magic 7 Pro brings some more. This is a new gaming phone from a company that's made quite a few at this point (hence the '7' in the name), so you'd think it'd know exactly what gamers need. Well, what they apparently need is more RAM than your average gaming PC. That's right, the newly-unveiled Red Magic 7 Pro comes in a few configurations, and they top...