Victoria Fox's Blog, page 118

Princess Kate's cancer: Congratulations, you were there too!

Is it about an affair? A Brazilian butt lift? Is she in a coma? Does she have to grow out poorly cut bangs? Is she dead?

If you read again now, one day after Princess Kate’s video message in which she made her cancer public, how enthusiastically there was speculation about her person, her whereabouts and her state of health in (social) media, then that’s what happened One thing above all: shame.

Shame that people hallucinate like this about other people’s lives without knowing them. Shame that people share memes in which they painlessly exploit another person’s life for a few laughs or likes. Shame that these posts still attract attention and are discussed on social media, in WhatsApp groups or at family gatherings.

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Flood Hub by Google: Know when the flood is coming

It was one of the worst disasters ever to occur in Pakistan, according to the UN. Two years ago, a third of the country’s entire area was flooded and 15,000 people died or were injured after an exceptionally heavy monsoon rain. Such floods could become more frequent in the future: According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, countries like Pakistan are among those most affected by climate change.

Flood disasters always surprise people in a country, whether in the Ahr Valley or in Libya. Floods are one of the most common natural disasters – and they hit countries in the Global South particularly hard. There is a lack of measuring stations, sensors and infrastructure there to predict floods at an early stage and warn the population accordingly.

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Telefónica joins forces with Telekom, Orange and TIM in the local cloud

They are collaborating on a project backed by 1.2 billion euros from the EU to deploy 10,000 ‘Edge Computing’ or distributed cloud nodes.

Telefónica has joined forces with the German telecom Deutsche Telekom, the French Orange and the Italian Telecom Italia (TIM) to build a distributed cloud offer, what is called Edge Computing, to provide s

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Javier Bardají: "Atresmedia will grow this year to 1,000 million in revenue"

The audiovisual group focuses on diversifying its sources of income to counteract the decline in traditional television and radio consumption.

Atresmedia steps on the accelerator. After ending last year with an improvement in revenue and profit, the group is aiming for a new increase in turnover this year, according to Javier Bardají (Barcelona, 1966), CEO of Atresm.

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Lawsuit against Apple: A monopoly that users love

What has been a bad year for Apple seems to be getting even worse. In the first two and a half months of 2024, the company reported a mixed performance in the Christmas business, had to accept severe slumps in the long-standing growth market of China, got off to a lukewarm start at best with its new hopeful Vision Pro, probably buried its decade-long car plans and is obviously in the highly hyped future segment of artificial intelligence behind. The result: Microsoft, not Apple, has been the most valuable company in the world since the beginning of the year. In the past week the gap has widened even further.

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"Rise of the Ronin": Off to Najapan

Samurai are actually always going. They’re honorable, fearless, wield sharp swords – so they’re all around cool. No wonder they appear so often as video game characters. Their latest appearance is the Playstation 5 exclusive Rise of the Ronin .

On the previously rather thin PS5 exclusive calendar for 2024, it should be one of the highlights, thanks to the scenario and the combination of elements from popular games: The game contains a lot of the difficult fights from Elden Ring , a little from the sneaking and exploring from Assassin’s Creed and also a bit of the loot spiral from Diablo . Unfortunately, combining good elements doesn’t make for a good game.

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Reddit Stock: Now Reddit just needs to become profitable

Reddit user Celkon can be satisfied. The screenshot that Celkon shared in the Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets shows a profit of almost $20,500 in one day, earned by buying and then selling Reddit shares. Even if the authenticity of the screenshot cannot be proven, other reports from users show that Reddit’s first day on the stock market was apparently worth it for some of them.

After Reddit had postponed its IPO for two years, the time had come yesterday: the social media platform debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. The issue value of the share was $34. At the end of the day the value was $50.44 – a subscription profit of a good 48 percent.

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Artificial intelligence: Two thirds of students in Germany use AI systems

At German universities, digital assistants with artificial intelligence (AI) are used by around two thirds of students (65 percent). This emerges from a survey by the digital association Bitkom. A further 22 percent said they could imagine using ChatGPT and similar systems. Only nine percent of those surveyed knew about the AI assistants but could not imagine using them. Only four percent had never heard or read about chatbots like ChatGPT or Google Gemini.

According to the survey results, at many universities there are no fixed rules for the use of AI systems. Only 17 percent of those surveyed said that there were central rules, 20 percent reported rules that were individually set by teaching staff. A third of respondents (33 percent) reported that there are no rules for the use of generative AI such as ChatGPT. 30 percent knew nothing about the relevant rules or did not answer.

For the study, 506 students from all types of higher education institutions in Germany aged 18 and over were surveyed online at the beginning of January. The survey is not representative, but it does provide a picture of the mood.

“The field of tension between artificial intelligence”

The students therefore primarily use AI to familiarize themselves with a topic. 68 percent said they used ChatGPT or similar systems for research. 40 percent had the AI create summaries. 37 percent prepared a presentation using AI. A good third corrected their own texts using the technology (37 percent) or had texts translated (35 percent). A third used the AI to prepare for exams (33 percent), a good quarter to write homework (26 percent). At the same time, almost half of those surveyed (44 percent) were in favor of banning the use of chatbots for term papers or theses.

When evaluating the answers, Bitkom identified an “artificial intelligence tension” of approval and rejection. On the one hand, the vast majority of students (74 percent) demand that they should learn how to use AI correctly at university. Almost half think that the use of AI should be standard at all universities. On the other hand, 60 percent believe that this leads to students thinking and learning less independently. Every second respondent (51 percent) believes that ChatGPT makes students less concerned with the course content.

At German universities, digital assistants with artificial intelligence (AI) are used by around two thirds of students (65 percent). This emerges from a survey by the digital association Bitkom. A further 22 percent said they could imagine using ChatGPT and similar systems. Only nine percent of those surveyed knew about the AI assistants but could not imagine using them. Only four percent had never heard or read about chatbots like ChatGPT or Google Gemini.

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Elon Musk's Neuralink: We don't know more about brain chips today than we did yesterday It's not easy to write a critical comment after watching this video. In a selfie look you can see how the paraplegic Noland Arbaugh controls a computer with just his t

It’s not easy to write a critical comment after watching this video. In a selfie look you can see how the paraplegic Noland Arbaugh controls a computer with just his thoughts, how he moves the chess pieces on the screen and how he is happy that he can play the computer game Civilization 6 all night thanks to the chip in his brain could gamble even though he can’t move his hands. This is so wholesome that even the most bad-tempered technology complainer will have tears in their eyes.

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Smartphones: US government charges Apple with antitrust violations

The US government has accused Apple of unfair competition. The iPhone maker denies competitors access to hardware and software functions of its devices and thus prefers the company’s own offerings, according to the lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and several states. Apple wants to defend itself. The lawsuit threatens principles that make Apple products stand out in a highly competitive market, Apple said. The indictment sets a dangerous precedent. The government wants to dictate how technology should be developed.

Apple is accused of making its own devices more attractive and other companies’ services artificially less attractive. Among other things, the lawsuit states that Apple is hindering so-called “super apps” that can serve as a platform for various services. The group also prevented competing chat services and games that run on servers on the Internet. Changes to Apple’s business that the US government might force will not necessarily affect users in Europe.

Apple has just had to make some fundamental changes to its EU business because of the new digital law (DMA). For the first time, the company allowed apps to be loaded onto iPhones from places other than the in-house app store. However, some large app providers such as the music streaming market leader Spotify and the Fortnite company Epic Games criticize that Apple has made the conditions so unfavorable for developers that the vast majority of them would not accept it. Apple emphasizes that downloading apps from other sources involves risks for users that must be protected.

1.8 billion for “deterrence”

The EU Commission recently imposed a fine of 1.84 billion euros after a complaint from Spotify because Apple had hindered competition in music streaming. Of these, 1.8 billion were intended for “deterrence,” it was said.

The US government is taking action against the next big tech company. The Justice Department has already sued Google, and the FTC is taking action against Amazon and the Facebook group Meta. For a long time, companies benefited from rather lax regulation on the domestic market, but that has changed in recent years. The proceedings in these cases usually take years.

After the lawsuit, Apple shares sank deeper into the red. The share lost up to a good three percent in value, increasing previous losses of around one percent.

The US government has accused Apple of unfair competition. The iPhone maker denies competitors access to hardware and software functions of its devices and thus prefers the company’s own offerings, according to the lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and several states. Apple wants to defend itself. The lawsuit threatens principles that make Apple products stand out in a highly competitive market, Apple said. The indictment sets a dangerous precedent. The government wants to dictate how technology should be developed.

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