Security was heightened in Beijing ahead of the two leaders’ crucial talks, which were set to be dominated by trade, AI and the war in Iran
Donald Trump will drive through a Chinese capital that is smoggier than it was on his last visit in 2017, when the authorities launched emergency measures to clear the skies of pollution days before his first state visit to Beijing.
Factories were ordered to halt production and heavily polluting cars were banned from the roads in the days ahead of the US president’s trip nearly a decade ago, an era in which China had declared war on air pollution and made special efforts to clear the skies ahead of important political events such as visiting dignitaries and the Beijing Olympics.
Continue reading...You may think you know when someone’s trying to deceive you, but there’s a clever trick very few people are aware of – one that has eluded AI and Traitors contestants alike
Can you tell if someone is lying?
Close your eyes. You’re already twice as good as you were before.
Continue reading...Defying criticisms of ‘slop’ and ‘theft’, the growing culture of AI-powered creativity is attracting interest from Hollywood
In a former hemstitching workshop where artisans sewed pleats for Stockholm’s 19th-century bourgeoisie, a distinctly 21st-century craft is taking root: AI film-making.
One day last week, an actor, director and composer squeezed into a tiny studio booth to record a voiceover for their next AI release. Critics disparage AI movies as “automated slop” or cheating, and fume at what they claim to be industrial-scale copyright theft. But this had a distinctly homespun feel, the little team fussing over a monologue by a poetic Scottish gorilla inhabiting a transhumanist cyberpunk universe. It was a bit like recording the Archers, one of them joked.
Continue reading...A booming tech sector has disrupted translation jobs in publishing – but they could be needed for a while longer yet
In February 2022, while he was plugging away at rendering the US writer Dana Spiotta’s novel Wayward into French, the literary translator Yoann Gentric decided he needed a bit of light relief. He would test whether AI could put him out of work.
Gentric had been grappling with a short non-verbal sentence that described the book’s protagonist’s feelings upon opening a window: “Bright, sharp night air, bracing.” He put the prompt into DeepL, a neural-network-powered machine translation engine that regularly outperforms Google Translate in accuracy assessments.
Continue reading...The series quickly withdrew a shirt that stirred up a strong backlash. But IndyCar has been playing with fire for a while
This could be the summer of IndyCar.
Formula One fatigue is beginning to set in, both globally and among the American audiences who helped fuel the sport’s recent boom. Nascar, for all its national reach in the US and lingering cultural import, remains a largely regional attraction. IndyCar, on the other hand, boasts a wealth of personalities, is anchored in real structural parity and delivers wheel-to-wheel action time and again. But as the buildup begins for the 110th running of this year’s Indianapolis 500 – still the sport’s commercial, spiritual centerpiece and Memorial Day weekend staple – IndyCar is at risk of tripping over itself in its rush to return to prominence.
Continue reading...Chinese president’s comments published after two-hour meeting with his US counterpart during Beijing summit
China’s president, Xi Jinping, has warned of “clashes and even conflicts” with the US over Taiwan, as he met Donald Trump for a highly anticipated summit in Beijing.
Xi’s remarks, which were published by China’s foreign ministry after his two-hour meeting with Trump on Thursday morning, said Taiwan was “the most important issue in China-US relations”.
Continue reading...A Kitt lookalike was filmed speeding in Brooklyn but the fine was sent to a museum where a replica is on display
A replica of the talking car Kitt from the 1980s US television action series Knight Rider for years has been parked in a museum about an hour’s drive north of Chicago, so how did it get a speeding ticket in New York City?
That is the question the Volo Museum is asking after it says it was recently mailed a $50 fine by New York City for a violation caught by traffic camera, alleging that its Knight Industries Two Thousand – Kitt for short and a black Pontiac Trans Am– got busted going 9mph over the speed limit in a 25mph zone on 22 April.
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Madeleine Finlay sits down with co-host and science editor Ian Sample to discuss three eyecatching stories from the week, including an update on hantavirus. Also on the agenda is the Pentagon’s release of a tranche of never before seen documents relating to UFOs, and a study looking at the link between taking part in cultural activities and slower biological ageing
Clips: News Nation
Continue reading...Two mothers fought British bureaucracy to obtain lifesaving cannabis medicines for their children. But most patients are having to go private – at huge cost
In the summer of 2012, Britain was in a festive mood. It was the year of the queen’s diamond jubilee and the London Olympics, and the country was celebrating. But for former hairdresser Hannah Deacon and her young family in Warwickshire, it was a summer of ambulances, hospital wards and doctors rushing in and out of emergency rooms.
Eight months earlier, Deacon had given birth to a healthy baby boy named Alfie. The early months of his life had been challenging for her and her partner, Drew, as they are for any first-time parents, but by the summer, Alfie was sleeping and feeding well, and it felt like the family was settling into the new rhythm. However, one night the couple woke up to find their baby’s little body gripped by a paralysing seizure.
Continue reading...A new book by linguistics professor Valerie Fridland, who was raised in Memphis by parents with French accents, explores the power behind the way we speak
Valerie Fridland writes in her new book, Why We Talk Funny: the Real Story Behind Our Accents, that humans instinctively use accents to categorize those around us. “We learn to recognize other people as being like us through the way that they sound,” Fridland says. It happens early: studies suggest small children, when choosing friends, favor those who share their accent.
In one study, for instance, five- and six-year-olds were shown pairs of kids on a computer screen, one with a local Canadian accent and one with a British accent. Asked who they wanted to be friends with, they picked the kid with the local accent – even though they lived in Toronto and are exposed to a huge range of accents every day.
Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan
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