South Africa's former boxing champion Zolani Tete has been shot dead outside his home in Mdantsane, in Eastern Cape province. A murder investigation has been launched. Chinese robot beats Usain Bolt's 100m world record at humanoid games Thousands flee Sudan's Kordofan fighting for relative safety of El Obeid

Look Up Say More Mashable Selects Mashable Voices Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Safety Net Creator Hub Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Switch Off Trending Now In My Bag All Series How to watch South Africa vs. New Zealand online for free Joseph Green is the Global Shopping Editor for Mashable. He covers VPNs, headphones, fitness gear, dating sites, streaming, and shopping events like Black Friday and Prime Day. All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. Access this free live stream from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN .

British diplomats in six locations around the world, including Buenos Aires and Santiago in South America, will no longer get hardship payments for working in dangerous cities. Bonuses and respite breaks are granted to those working in cities considered risky, like Beirut in Lebanon, or with high crime, such as Pretoria in South Africa, or high air pollution in cities including New Delhi and Beijing. The UK government has removed Santiago, in Chile, Panama City in Panama, Pyongyang in North Korea, Bamako in Mali, and Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in addition to the two south American cities, according to the latest list published last week, external . The 144 locations still on the list include many trouble spots but also popular holiday destinations such as Bali and Rio De Janeiro, prompting criticism from the Conservatives. Tory chairman Kevin Hollin rake said civil servants receiving extra pay for working in such areas is unfair on the taxpayer. The Foreign Office has given civil servants extra payments for working in areas where there is a high level of danger, or high risks to health, for the past 30 years.

Environment Animals Wildlife Ancient Egyptian god of magic is sometimes a bird, sometimes a baboon. It all has to do with moonlight's iridescent glow. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. A Hamadryas baboon in Eritrea (left). An African sacred Ibis perched on a rock in South Africa (right).

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Scientific machine learning is limited less by model size than by the data it is trained on. Observational data records what happened but not why; template synthetic data has a known generating process but only for the simulator's template, not the case a user faces. We argue a third option is now operationally feasible: instrumented data, in which every datum carries the mechanistic model that produced it, an explicit uncertainty over that model, and an executable family of counterfactuals. Verification-and-validation (V&V) instrumented image-to-simulation pipelines are one realisation: a sensor observation becomes a fully specified, solver-backed simulation with explicit, editable parameters and a propagated aleatoric/epistemic uncertainty. The substrate is case-specific, mechanistically supervised, and supports causal interventions through Pearl's do-operator.

Look closely and you'll see that every part of the text is not quite right. A few weeks ago, where I live in Johannesburg, a man ran a stop sign and crashed into my Subaru. At the scene he was frantic, unable to gather his thoughts. Half an hour later, I received a lengthy, perfectly grammatical text from him elegantly explaining how he perceived the crash had happened. For a repair quote, I wrote to a mechanic I know, a man who used to text me in curt phrases riddled with shorthand.

This post contains a list of the AI-related seminars that are scheduled to take place between 2 April and 31 May 2026. All events detailed here are free and open for anyone to attend virtually. What Do Our Benchmarks Actually Measure? Vukosi Marivate (University of Pretoria) University of Michigan Zoom link is here . Optimization Over Trained Neural Networks: What, Why, and How? Thiago Serra Azevedo Silva (University of Iowa) Association of European Operational Research Societies To receive the seminar link, sign up to the mailing list .

The world's most family-friendly landmarks revealed - with six UK spots making the top 50 The UK's best staycations revealed by Daily Mail Travel - from a Gara Rock beach proposal to an £80-a-night mansion retreat This sun-drenched European coast offers great value - and it's just a two-hour flight away Don't get caught out by Ryanair's small bag restrictions - I've tested the carry-on suitcases and underseat bags that beat the strict requirements Why heading to Salcombe, one of Britain's most expensive seaside towns, in the shoulder season is an off-peak treat - and what to do there Tired of fun! Middle class families who turn their noses up at Butlin's are missing out Luxury hotel owner in Cornwall offers to foot British tourists' petrol bills to ease financial pain of staycation With flights disrupted amid Iran war, these are Europe's easiest countries to navigate by train - and how it compares to flying for price and time How to retire to the seaside for as little as £90,000 - and Britain's best hidden beach home spots New business class seats with IMAX-style wrap-around screens revealed - making passengers feel like they're in the cinema How the cost of your staycation REALLY compares with a'cheap' holiday abroad - when you factor in everything from food to fuel Why the Lake District shouldn't introduce tourism tax, says Cumbria tourism boss How Marseille became Europe's Capital of Cool - with 20 degree sunshine, sea views and amazing seafood The world's best food markets revealed - and a UK spot comes in second place READ MORE: The best hotels in the UK for 2026 revealed - does YOUR favourite make the list? Ready to hit the mute button on reality? Deep in the Pembrokeshire countryside lies a cosmic retreat that feels almost light years away from Earth. The awe-inspiring Spodnic UFO is one of three standout stays at Melin Mabes, a four-acre glamping site owned and ran by Martin Johnson and his wife, CarolAnne. 'It looks like it's just landed from outer space and aliens could come out,' Martin notes as he showcases his brainchild during the first episode of Channel's World's Most Secret Hotels.

Machine learning competitions (MLCs) play a pivotal role in advancing artificial intelligence (AI) by fostering innovation, skill development, and practical problem-solving. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of major competition platforms such as Kaggle and Zindi, examining their workflows, evaluation methodologies, and reward structures. It further assesses competition quality, participant expertise, and global reach, with particular attention to demographic trends among top-performing competitors. By exploring the motivations of competition hosts, this paper underscores the significant role of MLCs in shaping AI development, promoting collaboration, and driving impactful technological progress. Furthermore, by combining literature synthesis with platform-level data analysis and practitioner insights a comprehensive understanding of the MLC ecosystem is provided. Moreover, the paper demonstrates that MLCs function at the intersection of academic research and industrial application, fostering the exchange of knowledge, data, and practical methodologies across domains. Their strong ties to open-source communities further promote collaboration, reproducibility, and continuous innovation within the broader ML ecosystem. By shaping research priorities, informing industry standards, and enabling large-scale crowdsourced problem-solving, these competitions play a key role in the ongoing evolution of AI. The study provides insights relevant to researchers, practitioners, and competition organizers, and includes an examination of the future trajectory and sustained influence of MLCs on AI development.