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Generative AI’s potential to unleash creativity, accelerate discovery, and enhance efficiency could add trillions to Asian economies.

When it comes to the ability to generate, arrange, and analyze content, generative AI is a gamechanger—one with transformative social and economic potential.

As a technology that is democratized—one that doesn’t simply exist in a faraway lab or tech community in Silicon Valley, for instance—generative AI lowers the barriers to participation. In the age of generative AI, anyone can be a creator. But this also entails a profound workforce shift, changing the processes of production within the economy and, in turn, the types of tasks that are undertaken and the… More.

Meta is taking on Twitter with a new app. Instagram today announced the anticipated launch of its text-based social networking app, Threads, which allows Instagram users to authenticate with their existing credentials in order to post short updates, including text up to 500 characters; links; photos; and videos up to 5 minutes in length.

At launch, Threads is available on iOS and Android in 100 countries, though not in the EU, reportedly due to concerns around adhering to local data privacy regulations. Users can log in with their Instagram credentials, where their username and verification status will carry over. However, Threads profiles can be customized independently as well.

The app’s existence was first scooped by MoneyControl this March and later confirmed by Platformer. In June, Meta previewed the app to employees during a company-wide meeting. Further leaks offered more details about the app’s target market of high-profile celebrities, influencers and artists, and its planned feature set.

As Meta sets its sight on introducing its virtual reality headsets to the Chinese market, Mark Zuckerberg’s contentious remarks about Beijing in the past may pose a major obstacle to his China dream. According to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, Meta is preparing to re-enter China by selling the Oculus Quest VR headset in China. If Tesla can sell cars and Apple can sell phones in China, why isn’t Meta present there? Zuckerberg asked in a recent internal meeting.

But some observers are quick to point out that Zuckerberg has a history of criticizing the Chinese government, a stance that will likely be amplified in the current climate of heightened tensions between the U.S. and China.… More.

New research by the University of Liverpool could signal a step change in the quest to design the new materials that are needed to meet the challenge of net zero and a sustainable future.

Published in the journal Nature, Liverpool researchers have shown that a mathematical algorithm can guarantee to predict the structure of any material just based on knowledge of the atoms that make it up.

Developed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Liverpool’s Departments of Chemistry and Computer Science, the algorithm systematically evaluates entire sets of possible structures at once, rather than considering them one at a time, to accelerate identification of the correct solution.

“It tastes like chicken.” That’s a common review of UPSIDE Foods’ new trial product. Perhaps that’s not surprising: it is, after all, chicken — at the cellular level. But the fillets are not from a slaughterhouse. They are grown in bioreactors in an urban factory in California.

Alittle over a decade ago, only a handful of researchers were investigating the potential of laboratory-made meat. The world’s first cultured beef burger, which reportedly cost US$325,000, was made by Maastricht University biomedical engineer Mark Post, who ate it at a press conference in 2013. Such products are now much closer to market: more than 150 companies around the world are working on cultured meat (from ground beef to steaks, chicken, pork and fish), milk or related ‘cellular agriculture’ products, including leather.


Companies making cultured meat are attracting billions of dollars of investment. Here are their biggest challenges.

Camera sensitive enough to spot a single photon finally achieved by researchers in colorado.


A team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, has successfully developed a super-sensitive camera capable of detecting a single photon.

This remarkable achievement opens up new avenues for scientific exploration and holds significant potential for applications in quantum computing, communications, space exploration, and medical research.