Telescope #82
Weekly horizon scan…
SUSTAINABILITY
Firefighters in central Chile on Monday battled to quell fierce forest fires that have killed 123 people so far and razed entire neighborhoods, while President Gabriel Boric warned the country faces a "tragedy of very great magnitude". DETAIL
Germany will abstain from a vote on a European law that aims to require large companies to take action if they find their supply chains employ child labour or damage the environment, the Social Democrat labour minister told Reuters on Tuesday. DETAIL
The project MOBILITIES for EU, which kicked off at the end of January 2024, wants to help cities go green. The goal is to implement new mobility and freight transport concepts. Madrid and Dresden will be the first to pilot the ideas. DETAIL
Insects may be struggling to locate flowers because air pollutants are degrading the chemical compounds responsible for their enticing floral scents. “In recent years, there has been a growing interest in ‘sensory pollution’,” says Jeff Riffell at the University of Washington in Seattle. This pollution, which arises from human activity, can change wildlife behaviour by changing or introducing new stimuli, he says. DETAIL
HEALTH
You can now use Apple Vision Pro to help manage your anxiety. The Lungy: Spaces app utilizes the features of what Apple calls “spatial computing” to create bespoke interactive breathing exercises and sound-based, active meditation. DETAIL
DIGITAL / TECHNOLOGY / SCIENCE /AI
Astronomers have spotted an intriguing "super-Earth" orbiting its red dwarf star inside the habitable zone, meaning it could likely host liquid water on its surface, a key factor for the potential habitability of exoplanets. At just 1.55 times the Earth's radius, it's fairly small for a planet of its type. But what really caught the researchers' attention was its suspected sibling, which they believe is even smaller and also roughly the size of our own planet, lurking within the same region. DETAIL
A team of Stanford researchers tasked an unmodified version of OpenAI's latest large language model to make high-stakes, society-level decisions in a series of wargame simulations — and it didn't bat an eye before recommending the use of nuclear weapons. DETAIL
Meta plans to label AI-generated images across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, but only images that already contain 'invisible markers' will be caught by its system. DETAIL
Microsoft signed a new collaboration agreement with media startup Semafor. Within the scope of this collaboration, OpenAI and Microsoft's artificial intelligence tools will support news production processes. As part of the agreement, Microsoft made a significant payment for Semafor to launch a breaking news feed called “Signals”. Sources close to the subject state that although the companies refrain from sharing financial details, the amount paid is important for Semafor. DETAIL
Boston Dynamics released a video showing its Atlas humanoid picking and placing automotive struts. The significance of the demo is that Atlas performs all of the object recognition using the robot’s onboard sensors. Atlas acquires the automotive struts, using its grippers from a vertical storage unit, and places them horizontally onto a flow cart. DETAIL
Suno, an artificial intelligence initiative consisting of musicians and artificial intelligence experts, allows you to produce your own music with text commands. To do this, you need to tell Suno what you want to make a song about and with what performance. Command 2 produces the song. DETAIL
ENERGY / TRANSPORTATION
The UK’s 40-year-old fusion reactor achieved a world record for energy output in its final runs before being shut down for good, scientists have announced. The Joint European Torus (JET) in Oxfordshire began operating in 1983. When running, it was temporarily the hottest point in the solar system, reaching 150 million°C.
The US battery recycling provider Cirba Solutions and the South Korean battery material manufacturer Ecopro have agreed on a cooperation. Ecopro will use recycled materials from Cirba Solutions to manufacture cathode materials for new batteries. DETAIL
A German-Czech consortium wants to develop a motorbike with a hydrogen fuel cell drive as part of the Hydrocycle project. By the end of 2025, a hydrogen motorbike is to be built as a demonstrator that meets European approval standards and certification regulations. DETAIL
CYBERSECURITY
For $13.99 per month, Mozilla Monitor Plus will regularly scan more than 190 data-broker sites for your personal details and issue removal requests on your behalf. DETAIL
The Treasury Department says six officials with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are behind the hacking of water treatment facilities in the US. DETAIL
The culprit behind last month's fake Biden AI robocalls appears to have been identified. New Hampshire's Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that it traced the illegal calls back to Life Corporation, a company based in Texas, and its owner Walter Monk. DETAIL
HUMAN
According to TUIK data, Turkey's population has increased by 92 thousand 824 people compared to the previous year in 2023, reaching 85 million 372 thousand 377. DETAIL