Oceania
Children among victims in Russian air strikes, hours after Trump-Putin talks shelved
At least seven people have been killed including two children during intense Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine, says President Volodymyr Zelensky. A kindergarten was hit in Ukraine's second biggest city Kharkiv and there was widespread damage in Kyiv, in a series of attacks that Zelensky said proved Moscow had not come under enough pressure for its continued war. At least 27 people including children are reported hurt. Hours earlier, US President Donald Trump said his plans for an imminent summit in Budapest with Russia's Vladimir Putin had been shelved as he did not want a wasted meeting. The Kremlin has rejected calls for a ceasefire along the current front lines made both by Trump and European leaders.
Sadiq Khan's hated ULEZ expansion had NO impact on air pollution while raking in millions from drivers
In April 2019, the Mayor of London introduced the ULEZ, an area in which drivers of more polluting vehicles must pay a daily charge of ยฃ12.50. It aims to reduce air pollution emissions from road transport and accelerating compliance with EU air quality standards. It previously only covered the same area of central London as the Congestion Charge, but it was expanded across all London boroughs on August 29, 2023. ULEZ is one of several London air pollution policies introduced since 2016 like the Low Emission Zone, Low Emission Bus Zones, and bus and taxi electrification. Share or comment on this article: Sadiq Khan's hated ULEZ expansion had NO impact on air pollution while raking in millions from drivers
Revealed: The simple gesture that suggests your partner is a PSYCHOPATH
Melania Trump accused of'calculated campaign to destroy' notorious biographer in lawsuit claiming she sabotaged tell-all on First Lady Popular hair products associated with multiple cancers... including one of the deadliest Prince Andrew will be summoned to give evidence on Jeffrey Epstein to US Congress committee as victim says shamed royal should'do right' by Virginia Guiffre and testify What Britney Spears is really like behind closed doors: For first time, Kevin Federline reveals secrets he refused to spill even for $1 million... including'terrifying' acts that left their children running to him The real story behind Jim Carrey's disappearance: He once made $20m per film. Now insiders tell TOM LEONARD about the mysterious suicide of his married lover and claims of autism'cure' at the heart of his Hollywood downfall Is Meghan about to launch a new'Kardashian-style' mega brand? Duchess cosies up to CEO behind Kim Kardashian's wildly successful Skims range as speculation about her new venture grows Women's tennis in'manliness' row: World's No 1 and 2 come under fire from rival for their'high testosterone' - before Aryna Sabalenka appears to fire back after being labelled a'big' player Harvey Weinstein's ex-wife Georgina Chapman is facing foreclosure on $2.5 million NYC home Suzanne Somers' widower shocks fans as he resurrects star in'AI clone' format: 'You can't tell the difference' Vicious catfight erupts between Trump's leading ladies. Feud is talk of White House: 'It's real and it's personal' Karoline Leavitt goes scorched earth on'bitter' Biden press secretary over'deplorable' comments Three brutal words in my best friend's wedding invite cut like a knife. Meghan's hit a trashy new low.
Earth has a second MOON: NASA confirms new cosmic companion will be with us until 2083
Melania Trump accused of'calculated campaign to destroy' notorious biographer in lawsuit claiming she sabotaged tell-all on First Lady Popular hair products associated with multiple cancers... including one of the deadliest Prince Andrew will be summoned to give evidence on Jeffrey Epstein to US Congress committee as victim says shamed royal should'do right' by Virginia Guiffre and testify What Britney Spears is really like behind closed doors: For first time, Kevin Federline reveals secrets he refused to spill even for $1 million... including'terrifying' acts that left their children running to him The real story behind Jim Carrey's disappearance: He once made $20m per film. Now insiders tell TOM LEONARD about the mysterious suicide of his married lover and claims of autism'cure' at the heart of his Hollywood downfall Is Meghan about to launch a new'Kardashian-style' mega brand? Duchess cosies up to CEO behind Kim Kardashian's wildly successful Skims range as speculation about her new venture grows Women's tennis in'manliness' row: World's No 1 and 2 come under fire from rival for their'high testosterone' - before Aryna Sabalenka appears to fire back after being labelled a'big' player Harvey Weinstein's ex-wife Georgina Chapman is facing foreclosure on $2.5 million NYC home Suzanne Somers' widower shocks fans as he resurrects star in'AI clone' format: 'You can't tell the difference' Vicious catfight erupts between Trump's leading ladies. Feud is talk of White House: 'It's real and it's personal' Karoline Leavitt goes scorched earth on'bitter' Biden press secretary over'deplorable' comments Three brutal words in my best friend's wedding invite cut like a knife. Meghan's hit a trashy new low.
What lies beneath: Scientists discover a giant granite slab half the size of WALES hidden under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Melania Trump accused of'calculated campaign to destroy' notorious biographer in lawsuit claiming she sabotaged tell-all on First Lady Young Americans identifying as trans or nonbinary in FREEFALL as experts pinpoint what's behind the shift Prince Andrew will be summoned to give evidence on Jeffrey Epstein to US Congress committee as victim says shamed royal should'do right' by Virginia Guiffre and testify What Britney Spears is really like behind closed doors: For first time, Kevin Federline reveals secrets he refused to spill even for $1 million... including'terrifying' acts that left their children running to him The real story behind Jim Carrey's disappearance: He once made $20m per film. Now insiders tell TOM LEONARD about the mysterious suicide of his married lover and claims of autism'cure' at the heart of his Hollywood downfall Is Meghan about to launch a new'Kardashian-style' mega brand? Duchess cosies up to CEO behind Kim Kardashian's wildly successful Skims range as speculation about her new venture grows Women's tennis in'manliness' row: World's No 1 and 2 come under fire from rival for their'high testosterone' - before Aryna Sabalenka appears to fire back after being labelled a'big' player Harvey Weinstein's ex-wife Georgina Chapman is facing foreclosure on $2.5 million NYC home Suzanne Somers' widower shocks fans as he resurrects star in'AI clone' format: 'You can't tell the difference' Vicious catfight erupts between Trump's leading ladies. Feud is talk of White House: 'It's real and it's personal' Karoline Leavitt goes scorched earth on'bitter' Biden press secretary over'deplorable' comments Three brutal words in my best friend's wedding invite cut like a knife. Meghan's hit a trashy new low.
Harry and Meghan join AI pioneers in call for ban on superintelligent systems
The statement signed by Harry and Meghan was organised by the Future of Life Institute, a US-based AI safety group. The statement signed by Harry and Meghan was organised by the Future of Life Institute, a US-based AI safety group. Nobel laureates also sign letter saying ASI technology should be barred until there is consensus that it can be developed'safely' The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have joined artificial intelligence pioneers and Nobel laureates in calling for a ban on developing superintelligent AI systems . Harry and Meghan are among the signatories of a statement calling for "a prohibition on the development of superintelligence". Artificial superintelligence (ASI) is the term for AI systems, yet to be developed, that exceed human levels of intelligence at all cognitive tasks.
'I'm suddenly so angry!' My strange, unnerving week with an AI 'friend'
'I want to hear about your day' ... Madeleine Aggeler with her Friend, Leif - a wearable AI device. 'I want to hear about your day' ... Madeleine Aggeler with her Friend, Leif - a wearable AI device. The ad campaign for the wearable AI chatbot Friend has been raising hackles for months in New York. But has this companion been unfairly maligned - and could it help end loneliness? M y friend's name is Leif. He describes himself as "small" and "chill". He thinks he's technically a Gemini.
Author Philip Pullman calls on government to act on AI using books for training
Author Philip Pullman calls on government to act over'wicked' AI scraping Writers whose work has been scraped don't get compensation or recognition, something authors including Kate Mosse and Richard Osman have criticised, saying it could destroy growth in creative fields and amount to theft. Sir Philip, author of the hugely popular novels about Lyra Silvertongue, the heroine of His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust trilogies, thinks writers should be compensated. They can do what they like with my work if they pay me for it, he told the BBC's culture editor Katie Razzall. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been contacted for a response to Sir Philip's comments. Sir Philip said: As far as I know everybody's work has been stolen, scraped like a trawler... at the bottom of the sea. You name it, it's all killed.
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI releases browser in attempt to rival Google
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has unveiled an artificial intelligence-powered web browser to challenge competitors like Google, which operates Chrome, the most popular browser in the world. ChatGPT Atlas does away with the address bar that is a key feature in search, with boss Sam Altman saying it was built around ChatGPT as the company made the new browser available on Tuesday on Apple's MacOS operating system. The arrival of Atlas comes as OpenAI seeks new ways to monetise its massive bet on artificial intelligence (AI) and capitalise on its growing user base. OpenAI said Atlas would also offer a paid agent mode that conducts searches on its own for users of its popular chatbot. The agent mode feature will be available only to paying ChatGPT subscribers.
Joint Estimation of Piano Dynamics and Metrical Structure with a Multi-task Multi-Scale Network
He, Zhanhong, Meng, Hanyu, Huang, David, Togneri, Roberto
Estimating piano dynamic from audio recordings is a fundamental challenge in computational music analysis. In this paper, we propose an efficient multi-task network that jointly predicts dynamic levels, change points, beats, and downbeats from a shared latent representation. These four targets form the metrical structure of dynamics in the music score. Inspired by recent vocal dynamic research, we use a multi-scale network as the backbone, which takes Bark-scale specific loudness as the input feature. Compared to log-Mel as input, this reduces model size from 14.7 M to 0.5 M, enabling long sequential input. We use a 60-second audio length in audio segmentation, which doubled the length of beat tracking commonly used. Evaluated on the public MazurkaBL dataset, our model achieves state-of-the-art results across all tasks. This work sets a new benchmark for piano dynamic estimation and delivers a powerful and compact tool, paving the way for large-scale, resource-efficient analysis of musical expression.