Jun112023 by TechmanNo Comments

AI Chatbots Offer Comfort to the Bereaved

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Staying in touch with a loved one after their death is the promise of several start-ups using the powers of artificial intelligence, though not without raising ethical questions. Ryu Sun-yun sits in front of a microphone and a giant screen, where her husband, who died a few months earlier, appears. "Sweetheart, it's me," the man on the screen tells her in a video demo. In tears, she answers him, and a semblance of conversation begins. When Lee Byeong-hwal learned he had terminal cancer, the 76-year-old South Korean asked startup DeepBrain AI to create a digital replica using several hours of video. "We don't create new content" such as sentences that the deceased would have never uttered or at least written and validated during their lifetime, said Joseph Murphy, head of…


Jun82023 by TechmanNo Comments

Apple, Defying the Times, Stays Quiet on AI

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Resisting the hype, Apple defied most predictions this week and made no mention of artificial intelligence when it unveiled its latest slate of new products, including its Vision Pro mixed reality headset. Generative AI has become the tech world's biggest buzzword since Microsoft-backed OpenAI released ChatGPT late last year, revealing the capabilities of the emerging technology.  ChatGPT opened the world's eyes to the idea that computers can churn out complex, human-level content using simple prompts, giving amateurs the talents of tech geeks, artists or speechwriters.  Apple has laid low as Microsoft and Google raced out announcements on how generative AI will revolutionize its products, from online search to word processing and retouching images. During the recent earnings season, tech CEOs peppered mentions of AI into their every phrase, eager to…


Jun82023 by DmediaNo Comments

El Nino Climate Pattern Now Underway, NOAA Reports

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El Nino has officially returned and is likely to yield extreme weather later this year, from tropical cyclones spinning toward vulnerable Pacific islands to heavy rainfall in South America to drought in Australia.  After three years of the La Nina climate pattern, which often lowers global temperatures slightly, the hotter El Nino is back in action, according to an advisory issued on Thursday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center.  El Nino is born out of unusually warm waters in the Eastern Pacific, near the coast of South America, and often accompanied by a slowing down or reversal of the easterly trade winds.  "In May, weak El Nino conditions emerged as above-average sea surface temperatures strengthened across the equatorial Pacific Ocean," the advisory said.  The last…


Jun82023 by DmediaNo Comments

U.S. East Coast Blanketed in Smoke From Canadian Wildfires

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Schools across the U.S. East Coast canceled outdoor activities, airline traffic slowed, and millions of Americans were urged to stay indoors Wednesday as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south, blanketing cities in thick, yellow haze. The U.S. National Weather Service issued air quality alerts for virtually the entire Atlantic seaboard. Health officials from Vermont to South Carolina and as far west as Ohio and Kansas warned residents that spending time outdoors could cause respiratory problems due to high levels of fine particulates in the atmosphere. "It's critical that Americans experiencing dangerous air pollution, especially those with health conditions, listen to local authorities to protect themselves and their families," U.S. President Joe Biden said on Twitter. U.S. private forecasting service AccuWeather said thick haze and soot extending from high elevations to…


Jun82023 by DmediaNo Comments

Newer Transplant Method Could Boost Number of Donor Hearts By 30%

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Most transplanted hearts are from donors who are brain dead, but new research shows a different approach can be just as successful and boost the number of available organs. It's called donation after circulatory death, a method long used to recover kidneys and other organs but not more fragile hearts. Duke Health researchers said Wednesday that using those long-shunned hearts could allow possibly thousands more patients a chance at a lifesaving transplant — expanding the number of donor hearts by 30%. "Honestly if we could snap our fingers and just get people to use this, I think it probably would go up even more than that," said transplant surgeon Dr. Jacob Schroder of Duke University School of Medicine, who led the research. "This really should be standard of care." The…


Jun82023 by DmediaNo Comments

New Rules Seen Worsening India’s Stray Dog Problem

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Months after a 6-year-old child was hospitalized in an attack by stray dogs in a housing complex near Mumbai, more than 80 dogs still roam the community’s compound, regularly attacking other residents. Yet community leaders say they are powerless to deal with the problem because of an animal welfare law, first enacted in 2001 and updated this year, which protects the right of the dogs to roam freely and even requires that they be fed on the streets where they live. It also prohibits euthanization. "Neither concerned agencies are doing anything, nor can we do anything because of the [Animal Birth Control] policy," said Nagendra Rampuria, a member of the managing committee at the gated housing society in Pune, 110 kilometers southeast of Mumbai. "These dog bites are making a…


Jun82023 by DmediaNo Comments

Hawaii’s Kilauea Erupting Again After 3-Month Pause

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Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, began erupting Wednesday after a three-month pause, displaying spectacular fountains of mesmerizing, glowing lava that's a safe distance from people and structures in a national park on the Big Island. The U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in a statement that a glow was detected in webcam images from Kilauea's summit early in the morning, indicating that an eruption was occurring within the Halemaumau crater in the summit caldera. The images show fissures at the base of the crater generating lava flows on the crater floor's surface, the observatory said. Before issuing the eruption notice, the observatory said increased earthquake activity and changes in the patterns of ground deformation at the summit started Tuesday night, indicating the movement of…


Jun72023 by DmediaNo Comments

Explainer: Will COP28 Deliver a New Fund for Climate Loss and Damage?

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As communities in countries rich and poor face soaring costs from extreme weather and rising seas, governments are grappling with how to set up a new fund to tackle "loss and damage" driven by global warming. The topic was for years controversial at U.N. climate talks, as wealthy nations rejected demands for "compensation" for the impacts of their high share of the planet-heating emissions that are turbo-charging floods, droughts and storms around the world. However, at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt last November, a group of 134 African, Asian and Latin American states and small island nations finally won agreement on a new fund that will pay to repair devastated property, or preserve cultural heritage before it disappears forever. But the details of where the money will come from…


Jun62023 by DmediaNo Comments

China’s Latest COVID Wave May Hit 65 Million a Week With Mild Symptoms

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China, where COVID-19 was first identified in humans more than three years ago, expects its current wave of infection to hit as many as 65 million cases per week by late June, according to official accounts of models presented at a medical conference. While that may be an exhausting number to a post-pandemic world wearied by a still rising toll of 767 million confirmed cases and more than 6.9 million deaths, the predicted onslaught in China comes with less severe symptoms, Wang Guiqiang, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peking University First Hospital, told the official newspaper Beijing Daily. And, experts say, the outbreak is likely to be confined to China. Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology and…


Jun62023 by TechmanNo Comments

Financial Institutions in US, East Asia Spoofed by Suspected North Korean Hackers

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There are renewed concerns North Korea’s army of hackers is targeting financial institutions to prop up the regime in Pyongyang and possibly fund its weapons programs. A report published Tuesday by the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future finds North Korean aligned actors have been spoofing well-known financial firms in Japan, Vietnam and the United States, sending out emails and documents that, if opened, could grant the hackers access to critical systems. “The targeting of investment banking and venture capital firms may expose sensitive or confidential information of these entities or their customers,” according to the report by Recorded Future’s Insikt Group. “[It] may result in legal or regulatory action, jeopardize pending business negotiations or agreements, or expose information damaging to the company’s strategic investment portfolio,” it said. The report said the…


Jun62023 by TechmanNo Comments

Japan, Australia, US to Fund Undersea Cable Connection in Micronesia to Counter China’s Influence

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Japan announced Tuesday that it joined the United States and Australia in signing a $95 million undersea cable project that will connect East Micronesia island nations to improve networks in the Indo-Pacific region where China is increasingly expanding its influence. The approximately 2,250-kilometer (1,400-mile) undersea cable will connect the state of Kosrae in the Federated State of Micronesia, Tarawa in Kiribati and Nauru to the existing cable landing point located in Pohnpei in Micronesia, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Japan, the United States and Australia have stepped up cooperation with the Pacific Islands, apparently to counter efforts by Beijing to expand its security and economic influence in the region. In a joint statement, the parties said next steps involve a final survey and design and manufacturing of the cable,…


Jun62023 by DmediaNo Comments

‘Ray of Hope’: New Advances in Fighting Range of Cancers

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New advances in the fight against a range of cancers have been revealed at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which wraps up in Chicago on Tuesday. Here are some of the announcements that have most excited experts. Lung cancer One of the trial results that caused a stir in Chicago has raised hopes for a new weapon against lung cancer, the deadliest of all cancers. The treatment osimertinib was shown to halve the risk of death from a certain type of lung cancer when taken daily after surgery to remove the tumor. Developed by the pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca, the daily pill targets patients with non-small cell cancer — by far the most common type — as well as a mutation of their epidermal growth factor receptor,…


Jun62023 by TechmanNo Comments

Musk Says China Detailed Plans to Regulate AI

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Top Chinese officials told Elon Musk about plans to launch new regulations on artificial intelligence on his recent trip to the Asian giant, the tech billionaire said Monday, in his first comments on the two-day visit. The Twitter owner and Tesla CEO — one of the world's richest men — held meetings with senior officials in Beijing and employees in Shanghai last week. "Something that is worth noting is that on my recent trip to China, with the senior leadership there, we had, I think, some very productive discussions on artificial intelligence risks, and the need for some oversight or regulation," Musk said. "And my understanding from those conversations is that China will be initiating AI regulation in China." Praised China Musk, whose extensive interests in China have long raised…


Jun52023 by DmediaNo Comments

New Global Climate Assessment Aims to Gauge Progress

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Global leaders in the battle against global warming convened in Bonn, Germany, on Monday for the start of the final phase of a two-year long assessment of the progress being made to limit rising temperatures. The annual Bonn Climate Change Conference is part of the "global stocktake" — a process by which countries around the world assess how much progress has been made toward compliance with the 2015 Paris Agreement, a worldwide effort to prevent global temperatures from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era average. "The global stocktake is an ambition exercise. It's an accountability exercise. It's an acceleration exercise," U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in a statement. "It's an exercise that is intended to make sure every Party is holding up their end of…


Jun52023 by TechmanNo Comments

Is It Real or Made by AI? Europe Wants a Label as It Fights Disinformation 

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The European Union is pushing online platforms like Google and Meta to step up the fight against false information by adding labels to text, photos and other content generated by artificial intelligence, a top official said Monday. EU Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said the ability of a new generation of AI chatbots to create complex content and visuals in seconds raises "fresh challenges for the fight against disinformation." Jourova said she asked Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok and other tech companies that have signed up to the 27-nation bloc's voluntary agreement on combating disinformation to dedicate efforts to tackling the AI problem. Online platforms that have integrated generative AI into their services, such as Microsoft's Bing search engine and Google's Bard chatbot, should build safeguards to prevent "malicious actors" from…


Jun52023 by DmediaNo Comments

Pill Halves Risk of Death in Type of Lung Cancer

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A pill has been shown to halve the risk of death from a certain type of lung cancer when taken daily after surgery to remove the tumor, according to clinical trial results presented on Sunday. The results were unveiled in Chicago at the largest annual conference of cancer specialists, hosted by the American Society for Clinical Oncology. Lung cancer is the form of the disease that causes the most deaths, with approximately 1.8 million fatalities every year worldwide. The treatment developed by the pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca is called osimertinib and is marketed under the name Tagrisso. It targets a particular type of lung cancer in patients suffering from so-called non-small cell cancer, the most common type, and showing a particular type of mutation. These mutations, on what is called the…


Jun42023 by DmediaNo Comments

Tour de France Anti-COVID Protocol to Keep Riders in Hotels

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Tour de France organizers have set up an anti-COVID protocol for this year's race, with riders and team staff banned from signing autographs and eating out of their hotels, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters Saturday.  Riders and staff members were allowed out of their hotels last year. Access to the paddock at the start of the stages was open to reporters until midway through the race, when organizers decided to close it to "fight against the propagation of COVID-19."  Access to the paddock will be allowed when the Tour starts in Bilbao, Spain, on June 29, with everyone required to wear a mask.  "For all the team members: Respect a confinement - Limit the interactions outside the race bubble. No eating out. Respect social distancing…


Jun42023 by DmediaNo Comments

Death in the Amazon: Dangers of Environmental Reporting 

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The latest threat to the life of Txai Surui is still fresh in her mind. Protesting deforestation in the Amazon with other Indigenous people last week, she found herself held at gunpoint. "They got out guns and ambushed two days ago," Surui said. The Indigenous campaigner recalled the confrontation with gunmen in a telephone interview from Brazil with VOA. "I am 26 and my parents have been getting death threats since before I was born. We are threatened all the time," Surui said. Her testimony speaks of the dangers faced by Indigenous protesters and the journalists who report their stories from gunmen hired by illegal loggers or fishermen. On June 5, 2022, Dom Phillips, a British journalist who wrote for The Guardian and The Washington Post, and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, went missing.…


Jun32023 by DmediaNo Comments

Honeybee Health Blooming at Federal Facilities Across US

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While judges, lawyers and support staff at the federal courthouse in Concord, New Hampshire, keep the American justice system buzzing, thousands of humble honeybees on the building's roof are playing their part in a more important task — feeding the world.  The Warren B. Rudman courthouse is one of several federal facilities around the country participating in the General Services Administration's Pollinator Initiative, a government program aimed at assessing and promoting the health of bees and other pollinators, which are critical to life on Earth.  "Anybody who eats food, needs bees," said Noah Wilson-Rich, co-founder, CEO and chief scientific officer of the Boston-based Best Bees company, which contracts with the government to take care of the honeybee hives at the New Hampshire courthouse and at some other federal buildings.  Bees…


Jun32023 by DmediaNo Comments

WHO: Tanzania Declares End of Deadly Marburg Virus Outbreak

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Tanzania on Friday declared the end of a deadly outbreak of the Marburg virus, more than two months after it was first confirmed, the World Health Organization said.  Nine cases - eight confirmed and one probable - and six deaths were recorded in the outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever in the northwestern region of Kagera, the WHO said in a statement.  The U.N. health agency said it was the first such outbreak in Tanzania, an East African country with a population of almost 62 million.  The last confirmed case tested negative on April 19, setting off the 42-day mandatory countdown to declare the end of the outbreak, it added.  Neighboring Uganda, which witnessed its last outbreak in 2017 and shares a porous border with Tanzania, had gone on high alert…


Jun22023 by DmediaNo Comments

US Proposal for Remote Pacific Marine Sanctuary Draws Mixed Response

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In March, U.S. President Joe Biden announced the creation of a marine sanctuary across a wide swath of the Pacific Ocean. If finalized, it would help the U.S. meet its goal of protecting 30% of its oceans by 2030. The public comment period is underway, revealing the competing interests of conservation and economic development across the region. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports. ...


Jun22023 by DmediaNo Comments

Sweden Approaches ‘Smoke-Free’ Status as Daily Use of Cigarettes Dwindles

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Summer is in the air — cigarette smoke is not — in Sweden's outdoor bars and restaurants. As the World Health Organization marks "World No Tobacco Day" on Wednesday, Sweden, which has the lowest rate of smoking in the Europe Union, is close to declaring itself "smoke-free" — defined as having fewer than 5% daily smokers in the population. Many experts give credit to decades of anti-smoking campaigns and legislation, while others point to the prevalence of "snus," a smokeless tobacco product banned elsewhere in the EU but marketed in Sweden as an alternative to cigarettes. Whatever the reason, the 5% milestone is now within reach. Only 6.4% of Swedes over 15 were daily smokers in 2019, the lowest in the EU and far below the average of 18.5% across…


Jun22023 by DmediaNo Comments

Private Astronaut Crew, Including First Arab Woman in Orbit, Returns from Space Station

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An all-private astronaut team of two Americans and two Saudis, including the first Arab woman sent into orbit, splashed down safely off Florida on Tuesday night, capping an eight-day research mission aboard the International Space Station. The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying them parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, after a 12-hour return flight and blazing re-entry plunge through Earth's atmosphere. The splashdown was carried live by a joint webcast presented by SpaceX and the company behind the mission, Axiom Space. It concluded the second space station mission organized, equipped and trained entirely at private expense by Axiom, a seven-year-old Houston-based venture headed by NASA's former ISS program manager. The Axiom 2 crew was led by retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, 63, who…


Jun12023 by TechmanNo Comments

Amazon to Pay $31 Million in Privacy Violation Penalties for Alexa Voice Assistant, Ring Camera

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Amazon agreed Wednesday to pay a $25 million civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations it violated a child privacy law and deceived parents by keeping for years kids' voice and location data recorded by its popular Alexa voice assistant. Separately, the company agreed to pay $5.8 million in customer refunds for alleged privacy violations involving its doorbell camera Ring. The Alexa-related action orders Amazon to overhaul its data deletion practices and impose stricter, more transparent privacy measures. It also obliges the tech giant to delete certain data collected by its internet-connected digital assistant, which people use for everything from checking the weather to playing games and queueing up music. "Amazon's history of misleading parents, keeping children's recordings indefinitely, and flouting parents' deletion requests violated COPPA (the Child Online…


Jun12023 by TechmanNo Comments

China Eyes Spain in Drive to Conquer European EV Market

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The International Energy Agency says Chinese car manufacturers are emerging as a major force in the global electric car market, with more than 50% of all electric cars on roads worldwide now produced in China. Spain is the second-largest vehicle manufacturer in Europe after Germany and its market has become a target for Chinese automakers. From Barcelona, Alfonso Beato has this report, narrated by Marcus Harton. ...