Lifeboat Foundation

New York Mayor Eric Adams doesn’t speak Spanish. But it sure sounds like he does. He’s been using artificial intelligence software to send prerecorded calls about city events to residents in Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Urdu and Yiddish. The voice in the messages mimics the mayor but was generated with AI software from a company called ElevenLabs.

“People stop me on the street all the time and say, ‘I didn’t know you speak Mandarin,’” Adams said at a news conference this month.

Experts have warned for years that AI will change our democracy by distorting reality. That future is already here. AI is being used to fabricate voices, fundraising emails and “deepfake” images of events that never… More.

Continue reading “Candidates, take this AI election pledge. Or 2024 might break us” »

With a massive $2 billion reported investment from Google, Anthropic joins OpenAI in reaping the benefits of leadership in the artificial intelligence space, receiving immense sums from the tech giants that couldn’t move fast enough themselves. A byword for the age: Those who can, build; those who can’t, invest.

The funding deal, according to sources familiar cited by The Wall Street Journal, reportedly involves $500 million now and up to $1.5 billion later, though subject to what, if any, timing or conditions is unclear. I’ve asked Anthropic for comment on the matter.

It recalls — though it does not quite match — Microsoft’s enormous investment in OpenAI early this year. But with Amazon committing to as much as $4 billion to Anthropic, the funding gap is probably more theoretical than practical.

The $26.3 billion amount did not specify the payments to any single partner, but Apple was likely the biggest beneficiary.

Most likely whenever you search for something on your iPhone or Android phone, it’s definitely a Google search to many of us has become the staple of search engines. But Google also invests heavily in remaining to be so.

Dem10/iStock.

Continue reading “Google pays $26.3 billion to be top search engine” »

“As the world urbanizes, urban planners and policymakers need to make sure urban design and policies adequately address critical issues such as infrastructure and transportation improvements, poverty and the health and safety of urbanites, as well as the increasing inequality within and across cities.”

Increasing population shifts from rural to urban areas are resulting in the growth of cities and towns, a process referred to as urbanization. However, this development can put a strain on urban infrastructure, such as transportation, housing, sanitation, and utilities, leading to urban decay.

Everett Atlas/iStock.

Continue reading “AI can identify urban decay and social inequalities in cities” »

The engine combines the right blend of power, performance, technology and efficiency.

A renowned automaker, typically known to introduce high-revving models that often found its competition in offerings from rival brands with double the cylinders, has now taken a bold step by unveiling a single-cylinder engine.

With a rich heritage dating back to 1926 when the company was founded in Bologna, Italy, Ducati has consistently… More.

Continue reading “Ducati unveils world’s most powerful single cylinder engine” »

“We hope that this soft robotic arm exemplifies a future where machines assist, complement, and understand human needs more deeply than ever before.”

Drawing inspiration from the movements of elephant trunks and octopus tentacles, researchers at the CREATE lab of t. It ishe Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) has developed a revolutionary robotic structure, the “trimmed helicoid.”

Set to usher in greater compliance and control in robotic design, this structure ensures safer interactions between humans and robots and is a result of blending computational modeling with astute biological observations.

MIT researchers have created FibeRobo, a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) fiber that responds to cold or hot thermal stimuli.

Imagine a fiber that changes its shape when it gets warm and being able to use this fiber to make clothes that can quickly and silently change its shape.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Northeastern University have created FibeRobo, a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) fiber that responds to cold or hot thermal stimuli.

Continue reading “Shape-shifting fiber can produce morphing fabrics” »

Last month, OM1, a leading real-world data and tech company focused on chronic conditions, announced the launch of its Parkinson’s disease (PD) premium dataset and the enhancement of its Mental Health & Neuroscience Real-World Data Network.

The dataset includes more than 7,000 patients prospectively followed by neurologists in hundreds of clinics across all 50 states. OM1 enriches the data by extracting relevant information from treating clinician notes using its AI and language modeling, and data points include key symptoms, disease severity, treatments, longitudinal outcomes and clinical response. In addition to the dataset, data from an additional 700,000 PD patients are available in the OM1 Real-World Data Cloud for modeling health economics outcomes, patient recruitment for clinical trials, prescriber trends and other research needs.

The dataset combines real-world data sources, such as electronic medical records (EMR), medical and pharmacy claims, mortality data and social determinants of health (SDoH), to provide deeper insights into Parkinson’s disease patient journeys. The data can be leveraged to accelerate medical research and to support approvals and reimbursement, reducing the time to market and improving existing therapies.

We know that migraines, which are recurrent and sometimes debilitating headaches, have some genetic basis, but the link with our DNA isn’t entirely clear. Newly identified genetic variants could help in developing treatments.

By Chen Ly