Barbie is one of the most successful children's toys in history, spawning a multimedia franchise that includes merchandise, video games and a live-action film. Since US toy giant Mattel launched the original Barbie in 1959, more than 1 billion of the dolls have been sold worldwide. Certainly, Barbie's looks have been tweaked over the years to reflect changing beauty ideals and societal shifts. But according to a new study, one subtle change to Barbie has gone largely unnoticed – until now. Scientists in Australia have found that Barbies today have flatter feet than they did in past decades.

Different approaches have been adopted in addressing the challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI), some centred on personal data and others on ethics, respectively narrowing and broadening the scope of AI regulation. This contribution aims to demonstrate that a third way is possible, starting from the acknowledgement of the role that human rights can play in regulating the impact of data-intensive systems. The focus on human rights is neither a paradigm shift nor a mere theoretical exercise. Through the analysis of more than 700 decisions and documents of the data protection authorities of six countries, we show that human rights already underpin the decisions in the field of data use. Based on empirical analysis of this evidence, this work presents a methodology and a model for a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA). The methodology and related assessment model are focused on AI applications, whose nature and scale require a proper contextualisation of HRIA methodology. Moreover, the proposed models provide a more measurable approach to risk assessment which is consistent with the regulatory proposals centred on risk thresholds. The proposed methodology is tested in concrete case-studies to prove its feasibility and effectiveness. The overall goal is to respond to the growing interest in HRIA, moving from a mere theoretical debate to a concrete and context-specific implementation in the field of data-intensive applications based on AI.

Jubilant crowds bid farewell on Sunday to the hottest year on record, closing a turbulent 12 months marked by clever chatbots, climate crises and devastating wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Much of the world's population -- now more than 8 billion -- is hoping to shake off high living costs and global tumult in 2024, which will bring elections concerning half the world's population and the Paris Olympics. In Sydney, the self-proclaimed "New Year's capital of the world," more than a million partygoers packed around the harbor, with city officials and police warning that all vantage points were full.

After months of anticipation, the 2024 Golden Globes nominees were finally announced this week. From popstar Dua Lipa to actress Hannah Waddingham, plenty of British and Irish stars managed to earn themselves top nods. But while the stars will have to wait until 7 January to discover their fate, we let curiosity get the better of us and enlisted AI to help predict the results. MailOnline gave Google's Bard the list of nominees and asked it to guess the winners, based on past trends and current reviews. So, do you agree with its predictions?

CyberGuy shows how to take a sequence of action photos using Burst Mode and select the best one. So, you've probably heard about the latest stir in Hollywood – and no, it's not about another celebrity feud or a blockbuster release. CLICK TO GET KURT'S FREE CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH SECURITY ALERTS, QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS AND EASY HOW-TO'S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER Instead, the buzz is all about artificial intelligence elbowing its way into the director's chair, churning out movie trailers, title sequences, and even entire episodes of beloved shows. It's an uncanny blend of technology and creativity that has everyone from industry insiders to casual moviegoers sitting up and taking notice. The "Barbie" movie's debut has been postponed in the Middle East until the end of August due to Warner Brothers still working on an edit of the film that will appease the region's censors.

Greta Gerwig's hotly-anticipated Barbie movie has finally hit the big screen – and is set to supercharge the cinema industry left decimated by Covid. 'Barbie' – which is competing with Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer for box office success – stars Australian actress Margot Robbie as the titular character and Ryan Gosling as her boyfriend Ken. Robbie pays tribute to the original doll created by US inventor Ruth Handler, who saw a gap in the market after noticing not many children's dolls resembled adults. Whether Barbie has a positive influence on the kids who play with her has been one of the most contentious issues in the industry since she first hit shelves in 1959. Here, MailOnline looks at the long-lasting effects a Barbie doll can have on a child's development, according to scientific studies.

"Barbenheimer"--the collective celebration around the release of the Barbie and Oppenheimer movies--has collided with the wedding industrial complex. According to a Variety story this week, people are planning on taking their friends and family, prenuptials, to see the two films as a double feature. People who aren't getting married are planning similar movie-watching marathons. It also feels like a sign of the end times. This sense of dread doesn't stem from the public's collective yearning to absorb stories about a Mattel doll and the development of atomic weapons at the same time.

The first official Barbie game was effectively a simulator for getting ready to go out, in which Ken invited Barbie on a series of dates – to the pool, a party, a tennis match – and the player then had to zoom off in a yellow convertible to buy the correct outfits. It was annoying that Ken got to pick all the activities, but the detailed graphics and use of digitised speech were impressive at the time. I wanted to include at least one ridiculously obscure entry and here it is. Lost Word of Jenny is a surreal Japan-only platformer based around toy manufacturer Takara's localised version of Barbie – although she had to change her name to Jenny when the company lost the official licence (and Ken's name became Jeff). In the game, Jenny has to find her way back into a theatre musical by locating sections of a door code in weird locations, including a pirate ship, a giant cake and outer space.

In 2019, Greta Gerwig became the latest in a line of writers, directors, and producers to make a pilgrimage to a toy workshop in El Segundo, California. Touring the facility, the Mattel Design Center, has become a rite of passage for Hollywood types who are considering transforming one of the company's products into a movie--a list that now includes such names as J. J. Abrams (Hot Wheels) and Vin Diesel (Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots). The building has hundreds of workspaces for artists, model-makers, and project managers, and it houses elaborate museum-style exhibitions that document the company's history and core products. These displays can help a toy designer find inspiration; they can also offer a "brand immersion"--a crash course in a Mattel property slated for adaptation. When a V.I.P. visits, Richard Dickson, a tall, bespectacled man who is the company's chief operating officer, plays the role of Willy Wonka. He'll show off the sixty-five-year-old machines that are still used to affix fake hair to Barbies; he'll invite you to inspect life-size, road-ready replicas of Hot Wheels cars. The center even boasts a giant rendering of Castle Grayskull, the fearsome ancestral home of He-Man.

Rivalry is a vital element of fandom. Whether its punks v rockers, Star Trek v Star Wars or Marvel v DC, subcultures have always defined themselves by what they're not as much as what they are. Which is why I'm secretly delighted that Sega and Nintendo are apparently releasing their new Sonic and Mario games within days of each other this October. Both Super Mario Bros Wonder and Sega Superstars are nostalgic callbacks to the era of 2D platforming. Both games allow players to select from a range of classic characters and take on the rich, lushly colourful environments in cooperative modes, and both supplement the retro aesthetics with new abilities.