Police and federal agencies are responding to a massive breach of personal data linked to a facial recognition scheme that was implemented in bars and clubs across Australia. The incident highlights emerging privacy concerns as AI-powered facial recognition becomes more widely used everywhere from shopping malls to sporting events. The affected company is Australia-based Outabox, which also has offices in the United States and the Philippines. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Outabox debuted a facial recognition kiosk that scans visitors and checks their temperature. The kiosks ..read more

2024 marks the third iteration of the Refugee Olympics that showcases the caliber of displaced athletes from across the globe. Created and cultivated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Refugee Olympics team offers representation to athletes who originate from territories tangled in civil or conflict wars or struck by a natural disaster. The IOC Refugee Olympic Teams Paris 2024 and Dakar 2026 initiative is funded by Olympic Solidarity. This program allows host National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to nominate and support refugees residing in their countries to participate on the int ..read more

There have been countless debates on social media about men falling asleep at the speed of light as soon as they hit the pillow. But is that the case? And, do men sleep more than women? It turns out there are science-backed truths to all the claims. Do women have a harder time sleeping than men? Researchers from Harvard University, Stanford University, and the University of Southampton in the U.K. have discovered that women are much more likely to be affected by ‘extended wakefulness and circadian misalignment,’ leading to insomnia in the long run and lower sleep quality overall. Comparatively ..read more

Detecting when text has been generated by tools like ChatGPT is a difficult task. Popular artificial- intelligence-detection tools, like GPTZero, may provide some guidance for users by telling them when something was written by a bot and not a human, but even specialized software is not foolproof and can spit out false positives. As a journalist who started covering AI detection over a year ago, I wanted to curate some of WIRED’s best articles on the topic to help readers like you better understand this complicated issue. Have even more questions about spotting outputs from Chat ..read more

On April 27, the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi hosted a historic event in motorsport and technology. The inaugural AI-powered race of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) marked a pivotal moment in the integration of artificial intelligence into motorsports. ASPIRE, the program management arm of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), achieved a groundbreaking success, combining high-speed autonomous car racing with cutting-edge AI technology. The A2RL Yas Marina Circuit event is part of a new race series where eight teams from North America, Europe, the UAE, and As ..read more

Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has been sentenced to four months in prison. Judge Richard Jones, who presided over the sentencing hearing in the Western District of Washington on Tuesday, handed down a lighter sentence than the three years petitioned by the prosecution. In November, Zhao—better known as CZ—pleaded guilty to willfully violating anti-money-laundering rules that enabled hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions involving US-sanctioned entities, including Iran and Cuba, to pass through the Binance platform. The plea ..read more

Only two weeks ago the desert was flooded to its brim, making headlines around the globe due to the rarity of the occurrence. The National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) confirmed this is the first time the country has experienced such an outpour (more than 142mm of rain in one day) in over 75 years. Residents incurred varying repercussions, from flooded houses to submerged cars, and diversions across several roads leading to hours on the road. Social media was filled with images from the storm, and people managed to capture aesthetically pleasing videos even in those circumstances, and the most ..read more

A new calculator by comparison portal Compare the Market now lets you measure your carbon footprint of your social media usage and the environmental impact of your time spent on these platforms. The social media carbon footprint calculator works by taking your number of minutes spent on each social media site and multiplying them by the estimated emissions per minute for that site, before multiplying the daily figure by 365 to calculate the annual footprint. Wired Middle East chalks out how the MENA region is doing in terms of this digital environmental impact and what we can actually do about ..read more

At a tech forum in Beijing last week, a Chinese company unveiled a “homegrown” brain-computer interface that allowed a monkey to seemingly control a robotic arm just by thinking about it. In a video shown at the event, a monkey with its hands restrained uses the interface to move a robotic arm and grasp a strawberry. The system, developed by NeuCyber NeuroTech and the Chinese Institute for Brain Research, involves soft electrode filaments implanted in the brain, according to state-run news media outlet Xinhua. Researchers in the US have tested similar systems in paralyzed p ..read more

Time is fleeting. Charting its pace was a historic innovation with the birth of the watch. But as time went on, humankind pushed the boundaries of timekeeping and horology. These watches are a testament to this radical departure from functionality and a celebration of eccentric design that is truly mind-boggling.  Xeric Vendetta X Wandering Hour Automatic Courtesy of Xeric This miniature 70s sports car that elegantly graces its lucky owner’s wrist does indeed tell time. Inspired by Xeric founder Mitch Greenblatt’s passion for concept cars from the 70s and dystopian science fiction, the ..read more