Helping Ukrainian Refugees With NRC & Twilio Chatbots
We've been supporting the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) build chatbots with Twilio to directly help those fleeing their homes in Ukraine.
Signals
Spain’s plan to ban domestic flights where you can take a train in under two and half hours | Euronews
It isn’t yet known how many flights will actually be impacted by restrictions.
Thinking outside the bin at the world’s first zero-waste restaurant - Positive News
Waste is a failure of the imagination, goes the adage at Silo: the world’s first zero-waste restaurant
How the UN is Holding Back the Sahara Desert
Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison journeys with the UN World Food Programme to the Northern border of Senegal to see an innovative land recovery projec...
Apple abandons its car: Here are other projects the company has killed | TechCrunch
As the Apple car is no longer in the works, it's worth looking back at the company's history of its shelved projects, from AirPower to a TV.
RuPaul Building Fortified Compound to Withstand "Cycle of Destruction"
In a new interview, drag superstar RuPaul Andre Charles dishes on a variety of topics -- including his fortified compound.
US startup ditches towers for unique pyramid-mounted wind turbines
An innovative floating offshore wind turbine prototype was launched in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Instead of a single anchor tower, the approach uses a pyramid base that can also passively orient itself in the direction of the blowing wind.
Has UAE cloud-seeding gone too far?
Waterlogged streets, flooded malls, chemicals pumped into the skies... Should we really be playing with the weather?
The big design freak-out: A generation of design leaders grapple with their future
The first generation of corporate design leaders are transitioning out of their executive roles at companies like IBM, McKinsey, and others. What comes next?
The sources I’ve spoken with could only recall one company that filled an executive level chief design officer role in the second half of the year—PayPal, who brought on Rachel Kobetz from Expedia, in September of 2023.
Now there is more inspection and less trust. As leaders we need to learn how to be really awesome stewards with resources. We need to defend the investment in design with total clarity. That part is new.”
Doom Runs on E. Coli Bacteria Now
Yeah, you heard me: the 1993 video game Doom, which has been ported to every platform imaginable (an Apple Pippin, a jailbroken
Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot
Air Canada appears to have quietly killed its costly chatbot support.
US mother gets call from ‘kidnapped daughter’ – but it’s really an AI scam
Jennifer DeStefano tells US Senate about dangers of artificial technology after receiving phone call from scammers sounding exactly like her daughter
Aya | Cohere For AI
Cohere’s non-profit research lab, C4AI, released the Aya model, a state-of-the-art, open source, massively multilingual, research LLM covering 101 languages – including more than 50 previously underserved languages.
The Internet Is About to Get Weird Again
The internet seems ripe for change, and millions of people seem poised to connect in new ways, as they reconsider their relationship to technology.
The hottest new programming language is English! Or maybe not.
Programming in English might not be all its cracked up to be.
TikTok Explores New Streaming Studios in LA to Facilitate Live Shopping Push
TikTok's set to make an even bigger push on in-stream commerce this year.
TikTok’s looking to open a new series of live-stream studios in Los Angeles, where creators will be able to film content in a more professional environment
The fastest-growing countries for software development, according to GitHub
New data shows a rising tide of coders in Bangladesh and Nigeria.
Putting 10,000 EVs on African roads, the hard way
Benin-based Spiro exchanges old bikes for electric models across four African countries, but the experience has been a mix of pain and success.
Benin-based Spiro exchanges old bikes for electric models across four African countries, but the experience has been a mix of pain and success.
Most Top News Sites Block AI Bots. Right-Wing Media Welcomes Them
Nearly 90 percent of top news outlets like 'The New York Times' now block AI data collection bots from OpenAI and others. Leading right-wing outlets like NewsMax and Breitbart mostly permit them.
Finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’
A finance worker at a multinational firm was tricked into paying out $25 million to fraudsters using deepfake technology to pose as the company’s chief financial officer in a video conference call, according to Hong Kong police.
the worker put aside his early doubts after the video call because other people in attendance had looked and sounded just like colleagues he recognized
The Cheap Web
The cheap web is a solarpunk philosophy of web design.
First full-height timber wind turbine opens in Sweden
The world's first full-scale timber wind turbine has started turning in Sweden, with a tower built by wood technology company Modvion.
The Rise of Techno-authoritarianism
Silicon Valley has its own ascendant political ideology. It’s past time we call it what it is.
Carbon capture technology aims to create jet fuel from thin air
A South Yorkshire tech centre has extracted carbon dioxide in a project that could reshape aviation travel
Software Released to Make Your Original Art Poison AI Models That Scrape It
The tool, Nightshade, introduces subtle alterations into an image to confuse AI models and "poison" their training data.
How Tech Outstayed Its Welcome
Last week, Apple opened pre-orders for the Vision Pro, a $3500 “spatial computer” that is its first real “new” thing since the Apple Watch, and arguably its most notable release since the iPad or iPhone. Ming-Chi Kuo, one of the few truly reliable Apple analysts, estimates that the Vision Pro
Apple boosts plans to bring generative AI to iPhones
Acquisitions, job postings and academic papers suggest tech company is preparing to run AI through its devices
SUVs drive trend for new cars to grow 1cm wider in UK and EU every two years, says report
Bigger cars more likely to kill people, release more toxic gas and are outgrowing design of cities
The Internet Is Full of AI Dogshit - Aftermath
The Internet used to be so simple to use that people collectively coined the term “let me Google that for you” to make fun of people who had the audacity of asking other people questions online. In the future I fear that people will have no other choice but to ask people for information from the Internet, because right now it’s all full of AI dogshit.
The Uncanny Valley
It has been a truly bizarre week. We’ve watched three banks die, and then a fourth bank almost died (Credit Suisse) before being scooped up by UBS for the rock-bottom price of $3.2bn. Credit Suisse’s fall from grace is especially remarkable given that it was