Google has launched updated video models, Veo 3.1 Standard and Fast, via its Gemini API. These versions improve on Veo 3 with more realistic videos and better prompt matching. The company claimed that it can generate “richer native audio” and…
The G20’s Financial Stability Board (FSB) has warned that global efforts to regulate crypto markets are falling short. While some progress has been made since its 2023 guidelines, the FSB says rules are still patchy and poorly coordinated, raising concerns…
Today’s web is not always an amiable place. Sites greet you with a popover that demands assent to their cookie policy, and leave you with Taboola ads promising “One Weird Trick!” to cure your ailments. Social media sites are tuned…
Say a person takes their French Bulldog, Bowser, to the dog park. Identifying Bowser as he plays among the other canines is easy for the dog-owner to do while onsite. But if someone wants to use a generative AI model…
MIT Music and Theater Arts fondly remembers the legacy of Professor Emerita Jeanne Shapiro Bamberger, who passed away peacefully at home in Berkeley, California, of natural causes on Dec. 12, 2024 at the age of 100. For three decades at the…
Computational neuroscientist and singer/songwriter Kimaya (Kimy) Lecamwasam, who also plays electric bass and guitar, says music has been a core part of her life for as long as she can remember. She grew up in a musical family and played…
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Big Tech’s big bet on a controversial carbon removal tactic Microsoft, JP MorganChase, and a tech company consortium…
Artificial intelligence has always promised speed, efficiency, and new ways of solving problems. But what’s changed in the past few years is how quickly those promises are becoming reality. From oil and gas to retail, logistics to law, AI is…
For years at Orchard Care Homes, a 23‑facility dementia-care chain in northern England, Cheryl Baird watched nurses fill out the Abbey Pain Scale, an observational methodology used to evaluate pain in those who can’t communicate verbally. Baird, a former nurse…
It’s the 25th of June and I’m shivering in my lab-issued underwear in Fort Worth, Texas. Libby Cowgill, an anthropologist in a furry parka, has wheeled me and my cot into a metal-walled room set to 40 °F. A loud…