The Cross Heads

New website shows you how much Google AI can learn from your photos

Software engineer Vishnu Mohandas decided he would quit Google in more ways than one when he learned that the tech giant had briefly helped the US military develop AI to study drone footage. In 2020 he left his job working on Google Assistant and also stopped backing up all of his images to Google Photos. […]

December 3, 2024 | AI, Google, LLMs, syndication | No comments

Can desalination quench agriculture’s thirst?

Spreading out the research Ninety-eight miles north of Loya’s farm, along a dead flat and endlessly beige expanse of road that skirts the White Sands Missile Range, more desalination projects burble away at the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The facility, run by the Bureau of Reclamation, offers scientists a […]

December 3, 2024 | desalination, Science, syndication | No comments

Vintage digicams aren’t just a fad. They’re an artistic statement.

Today’s young adults grew up in a time when their childhoods were documented with smartphone cameras instead of dedicated digital or film cameras. It’s not surprising that, perhaps as a reaction to the ubiquity of the phone, some young creative photographers are leaving their handsets in their pockets in favor of compact point-and-shoot digital cameras—the […]

November 29, 2024 | digicams, digital photography, syndication, Tech | No comments

Trump targets Mexico and Canada with tariffs, plus an extra 10% for China

Trump had in particular targeted Mexico on the campaign trail, threatening to impose “whatever tariffs are required—100 percent, 200 percent, 1,000 percent” to stop Chinese cars from crossing the southern border. He has also warned Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, he would impose tariffs of 25 percent if she did not crack down on the “onslaught […]

November 26, 2024 | Canada, china, Donald Trump, mexico, Policy, syndication, tariffs | No comments

$300 billion pledge at COP29 climate summit a “paltry sum”

The world’s most important climate talks were pulled back from the brink of collapse after poorer countries reluctantly accepted a finance package of “at least” $300 billion a year from wealthy nations after bitter negotiations. Fears about stretched budgets around the world and the election of Donald Trump as US president, who has described climate […]

November 25, 2024 | climate change, COP29, Policy, Science, syndication | No comments

What delusions can tell us about the cognitive nature of belief

Natalie also recalled other beliefs, including that she was dead (known as Cotard delusion), which she did not share with clinicians at the time. She noted that she entertained this idea due to the failure of other explanations to account for her strange experiences and an idea from a television show. Natalie said she eventually […]

November 24, 2024 | cognitive dissonance, mental health, Science, syndication | No comments

Elizabeth Warren calls for crackdown on Internet “monopoly” you’ve never heard of

US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York have called on government bodies to investigate what they allege is the “predatory pricing” of .com web addresses, the Internet’s prime real estate. In a letter delivered today to the Department of Justice and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a branch […]

November 23, 2024 | anti monopoly, elizabeth warren, monopolies, Policy, syndication | No comments

Microsoft asks Trump for help with Russian hacks

Smith testified before the US Senate in September that Russia, China, and Iran had stepped up their digital efforts to interfere in global elections this year, including in the US. However, Microsoft’s own security standards have come under fire in recent months. A damning report by the US Cyber Safety Review Board in March said […]

November 22, 2024 | china, cybersecurity, Fancy Bear, hacking, microsoft, russia, Security, syndication | No comments

Cracking the recipe for perfect plant-based eggs

An egg is an amazing thing, culinarily speaking: delicious, nutritious, and versatile. Americans eat nearly 100 billion of them every year, almost 300 per person. But eggs, while greener than other animal food sources, have a bigger environmental footprint than almost any plant food—and industrial egg production raises significant animal welfare issues. So food scientists, […]

November 20, 2024 | eggs, Food science, plant-based alternative, Science, syndication | No comments

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