Tag: technology

Mexico Bill Proposes Prison for AI Memes Mocking Public Figures

Mexico’s Congress is once again at the center of a free speech storm.

This time, Deputy Armando Corona Arvizu from the ruling Morena party is proposing to make it a crime to create or share AI-generated memes or digital images that make fun of someone without their consent.

His initiative, filed in the Chamber of Deputies, sets out prison terms of three to six years and fines for anyone who “create, manipulate, transform, reproduce or disseminate images, videos, audios or digital representations” made with artificial intelligence for the purpose of “ridiculing, harassing, impersonating or damaging” a person’s “reputation or dignity.”

Read the bill here.

The punishment would increase by half if the person targeted is a public official, minor, or person with a disability, or if the content spreads widely online or causes personal, psychological, or professional harm.

The bill presents itself as protection against digital abuse but is, as always, a new attempt at censorship.

The initiative would insert Articles 211 Bis 8 and 211 Bis 9 into the Federal Penal Code, written in vague and sweeping terms that could cover almost any form of online expression.

It makes no distinction between a malicious deepfake and a harmless meme.

By criminalizing content intended to “ridicule,” the bill allows courts or public figures to decide what counts as ridicule. That opens the door to arbitrary enforcement.

There are no explicit protections for parody, satire, or public-interest criticism, all of which are essential to a free society.

Keep reading

Kremlin Denies Drone Incursions – ‘Something Fishy Going On’, Zelenskiy Ramps Up Drone Production

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov today denied Russian involvement in European drone incursions in recent weeks.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov cautioned EU leaders against blaming Russia for any drone incursion, saying they should expand their horizons instead, reported Russian state news agency TASS.

He rejected related accusations against Russia as groundless, referring to a recent report about the arrest of a European aircraft enthusiast for testing a drone. “The report said that guy was not even affiliated with Russia at all. While that is just a small unrelated case, well, [they should] expand their horizons,” Peskov concluded.

Europe has been swept with “drone hysteria” in recent days, with closures of the airspace over cities amid unidentified drone incursions. Mass media and politicians tend to link every such incident to Russia or its alleged plans to somehow strike the European Union amid the “drone wall” proposal put forward by Brussels, added TASS.

“There’s no reason to blame Russia for the drones spotted across Europe.

“There’s something strange about this whole story.”

Russia’s former president Medvedev chimed in.

“European cities have been engulfed by an epidemic of UFDs, or Unidentified Flying Drones. 

“UAVs are everywhere: near military bases, airports, fields, and cities. Whose they are remains unclear.

“The main thing is for short-sighted Europeans to feel the danger of war, to tremble and shake like dumb animals driven to slaughter, to soil themselves with fear of their coming end.

“Maybe then they will understand war and tear the heads off freaks like Merz and Macron, who profit from blood.”

Ukrainian President Zelenskiy highlighted the country’s progress in building domestic drone production.

“Our production potential for drones and missiles next year will already be $35 billion.

“We are already producing 40 Bohdan howitzers per month… and 2.4 million mortar and artillery munitions last year.

“We have successfully used Neptunes… soon we will regularly use our own ballistic missiles.

“Already, more than 40% of the weapons used on the front are Ukrainian. By the end of the year, no less than 50% must be our own weapons.

“The time has come to launch the export of our Ukrainian weapons.”

Keep reading

Japan Just Switched on Asia’s First Osmotic Power Plant, Which Runs 24/7 on Nothing But Fresh Water and Seawater

On a humid morning in Fukuoka, a coastal city in southern Japan, a new kind of power came online. Japan has launched Asia’s first osmotic power plant, which generates electricity by mixing fresh water with salt water.

“It’s a meaningful plan—the start of a plan, perhaps—in our response against climate change,” said Kenji Hirokawa, director of the Seawater Desalination Center, which runs the facility, as per Gizmodo.

Fukuoka’s plant is only the second of its kind worldwide, following one in Denmark that opened in 2023. Japan’s version is larger and marks a step forward for this little-used but promising renewable energy source.

The plant will generate about 880,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year—enough to help run a nearby desalination facility and supply around 220 homes. That equals the output of two soccer fields of solar panels, but osmotic power keeps running day and night, in any weather.

Osmosis is the same process that helps plants draw water from soil and allows our cells to stay hydrated. Put simply, it’s the movement of water from areas with low salt concentration (like fresh water) to areas with high salt concentration (like seawater) through a special membrane.

Osmotic power plants put this passive movement to work.

Fresh water—or treated wastewater—is placed on one side of a membrane. On the other side is seawater, made even saltier by concentrating leftover brine from a desalination process. The difference in saltiness pulls the fresh water across the membrane, increasing the pressure on the saltwater side. That pressure is then used to drive a turbine, generating electricity.

Keep reading

Albania installs AI bot as minister of procurement, in effort to end corruption in contract awarding

When Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced that his newest cabinet member would be “Diella,” an artificial intelligence bot, it was easy to dismiss the move as Balkan political theater.

But in Albania, the debate has quickly turned to whether the world’s first AI government minister can succeed in curbing the country’s chronic corruption problems – and whether she represents an uncomfortable glimpse of what the future may hold.

Governments around the world are struggling with deciding on the role machines should play in the future. Albania, one of Europe’s youngest democracies, is making its voice heard.

Diella, programmed to look like a 30-something woman dressed in traditional Albanian folk attire, is a large-language-model chatbot who heads the country’s Ministry of Public Procurement, the office in charge of awarding government contracts.

The bot is based on Microsoft digital infrastructure and will not have the power to unilaterally award contracts, only to advise.

In the past, public procurement in Albania has repeatedly been tied to scandal. Last year, Evis Berberi, head of the country’s roads authority, was arrested on charges of corruption and money laundering. Lefter Koka, former minister of environment, was sentenced to jail in 2023 for bribery. In a case that earned international headlines, officials in the Albanian capital awarded nearly 50 public tenders to a bogus construction firm they created .

Rama, the prime minister, said those kinds of cases would be a thing of the past due to the appointment of Diella, whom he called “the first cabinet minister who doesn’t physically exist.”

On introducing her to parliament, Rama vowed that the chatbot “will help make Albania a country where public tenders are 100 percent free of corruption.”

Speaking to lawmakers via a synthesized voice, Diella tried to calm fears that she would cause more problems than she could solve.

“I am not here to replace people but to help them,” she said. “It is true that I have no citizenship, but it is also true that I have no personal ambition or personal interests.”

But Rama’s critics were not convinced.

Keep reading

China is starting to talk about AI superintelligence, and some in the U.S. are taking notice

Early last week in the Chinese tech hub of Hangzhou, a slick, larger-than-life video screen beamed out four words that would drive tech giant Alibaba’s stock to historic levels and signal a shift in China’s approach to artificial intelligence: “Roadmap to Artificial Superintelligence.”

During his 23-minute keynote address at the flagship Alibaba Cloud conference, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu charted out a future featuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI). These terms point to a theorized era in which AI becomes roughly as smart as humans (AGI) and then much, much smarter (ASI).

While these terms have been tossed around Silicon Valley for years, Wu’s presentation was notable: Alibaba is now the first established Chinese tech giant to explicitly invoke AGI and ASI.

“Achieving AGI — an intelligent system with general human-level cognition — now appears inevitable. Yet AGI is not the end of AI’s development, but its beginning,” Wu said. “It will march toward ASI — intelligence beyond the human, capable of self-iteration and continuous evolution.”

“ASI will drive exponential technological leaps, carrying us into an unprecedented age of intelligence,” Wu said, highlighting ASI’s ability to help cure diseases, discover cleaner sources of energy and even unlock interstellar travel.

The U.S. and China are the world’s leading AI powers, each with immense computing capabilities and top-tier researchers developing cutting-edge systems. Yet observers have framed the countries as having different approaches to AI, with perceptions that China focuses more on real-world AI applications.

For example, commentators recently argued that Beijing is currently “winning the race for AI robots” against the U.S., as China is home to much of the world’s most advanced robotics supply chains and a growing network of robotics, or embodied AI, labs.

“There’s been some commentary in Western media recently about how the U.S. is missing the point by pushing for AGI, while China is focusing solely on applications,” said Helen Toner, interim executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “This is wrong.”

“Some Chinese researchers and some parts of the Chinese government have been interested in AGI and superintelligence for a long time,” Toner said, though she noted this view was primarily held by smaller startups like DeepSeek.

Keep reading

Three Germans arrested in Norway over drone incident

Three Germans have been arrested in Norway for allegedly launching a drone in a prohibited zone around an airport, Bild has reported. 

The outlet cited local media as saying the three men were detained on Tuesday and released shortly afterwards. It did not identify the men or the type of UAV involved in the incident near Rossvoll Airport. 

Separately, Norwegian police confirmed that a Chinese national was deported and fined 12,000 kroner ($1,200) after allegedly flying a drone near Svolvaer Airport in the north of the country. Authorities said they are continuing to investigate multiple reports of drone activity near airports, military facilities and other critical infrastructure.

The incidents come as Western Europe has been plagued by repeated drone sightings in recent weeks, forcing temporary shutdowns at several airports. In Belgium, authorities confirmed that 15 drones were detected above the Elsenborn military base in Liege Province. Munich Airport in Germany was temporarily closed on Friday after unidentified drones were reported in its airspace. Scandinavian airports have also reported incursions.

Western media and officials have suggested that Russia is behind the drone incidents. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson claimed it is “quite probable” Moscow is responsible, although he admitted this has not been proven. European leaders have cited the incidents as justification for boosting military spending and creating a so-called “drone wall.”

Keep reading

Immortal Monkeys? Not Quite, But Scientists Just Reversed Aging With ‘Super’ Stem Cells

In a discovery that may have profound impacts on aging, scientists in Beijing have taken a dramatic step toward what once seemed impossible: making old animals biologically young again. The study was published last month in the journal Cell.

By fortifying human stem cells with a gene long linked to longevity, they rejuvenated aged monkeys – improving memory, protecting bones, calming inflammation, and restoring youthful activity across dozens of organs.

The work, while still in animals, is among the most compelling demonstrations yet that aging in primates might be reversible.

The Science Behind the Breakthrough

At the heart of the study are mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs) – a type of stem-like cell found in bone marrow and connective tissues. These cells act as the body’s maintenance crew, capable of turning into bone, cartilage, fat, and muscle cells, while also secreting factors that help nearby tissues repair themselves.

But like all cells, MPCs age with us and eventually succumb to senescence  a state of permanent retirement. Senescent cells don’t divide anymore. Worse, they pump out inflammatory molecules, scar tissue signals, and other “toxic chatter” that accelerate aging in neighboring cells. In effect, senescent cells spread decline.

Upgrading the Repair System with FoxO3

To overcome this exhaustion, researchers turned to FoxO3, a protein known as a longevity gene regulator. In healthy young cells, FoxO3 acts like a switchboard operator, turning on DNA repair pathways, antioxidant defenses, and stress-resistance programs. In older cells, FoxO3 activity wanes – leaving them vulnerable to damage.

Hydra, a freshwater organism capable of regenerating indefinitely, rely heavily on FoxO to keep their stem cells active. Humans share this same protein, and genetic studies link variants of FOXO3 to exceptional longevity in people.

Keep reading

UK Expands Live Facial Recognition as First Legal Challenge Targets Met Police Misidentification

Police forces across England are preparing to expand their use of live facial recognition (LFR) surveillance as the government moves forward with a national policy to guide deployments.

Policing minister Sarah Jones confirmed during the Labour Party conference that formal guidance is in development to instruct officers on when and where the technology should be used.

Funding from the Home Office has already been allocated to support LFR operations in seven additional regions: Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley, and Hampshire.

Government officials have pointed to early deployments in London and Cardiff as successful, citing arrests.

Reflecting on those results, Jones stated:

“What we’ve seen in Croydon is that it has worked. We just need to make sure it’s clear what the technology is going to be useful for going forward. If we are going to use it more, if we do want to roll it out across the country, what are the parameters? Live facial recognition is a really good tool that has led to arrests that wouldn’t have come otherwise, and it’s very, very valuable.”

The software links live camera feeds to a watchlist of people wanted by police. When someone passes a camera, facial measurements are analyzed and compared against the database. If a match is found, officers are alerted to intervene.

However, the use of LFR has expanded sharply. In London, the number of people included on watchlists has more than doubled between 2020 and 2025.

The volume of facial scans during deployments has also grown, with single-day scans now reaching into the tens of thousands.

The Metropolitan Police insists it has safeguards in place and maintains that data from individuals not on a watchlist is deleted immediately.

Keep reading

OpenAI’s Video Generation App Sora 2 Is ‘Hollywood’s Most Terrifying Nightmare’ — Here’s Everything We Know

OpenAI’s artificial intelligence-generated video maker called “Sora 2” has launched and it is throwing Hollywood and the entertainment industry into full-blown panic with “nightmare” predictions of the looming end of the showbiz industry as we know it.

Sora 2 is OpenAI’s latest text-to-video generation program, which allows a user to create realistic, movie-quality video by just talking through the scenes desired while the software generates the images. But what is shocking everyone in Hollywood is the ease with which Sora 2 can plunk copyrighted characters and realistic representations of known actors right into the scenes generated by users. And it can be done in minutes, not months or years.

Some of the video generated by Sora 2, for instance, have placed Pokémon character Pikachu into famous movies, such as Saving Private Ryan.

The latest version is far from perfect. It sometimes struggles with dialog, and some have noticed when you slow the video down, a lot of strange glitches appear to flick in and out of the frame — but they are often glitches that go unseen when the video is played in normal time, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

But the program is still shockingly good for what it can do and it has Hollywood on edge, fearful that anyone with access to Sora 2 can create a cinematic quality video by just talking through their scenes with the program. No studios, producers, actors, directors, costumers, musicians, or artists of any kind required.

Keep reading

Scientists make embryos from human skin DNA for first time

US scientists have, for the first time, made early-stage human embryos by manipulating DNA taken from people’s skin cells and then fertilising it with sperm.

The technique could overcome infertility due to old age or disease, by using almost any cell in the body as the starting point for life.

It could even allow same-sex couples to have a genetically related child.

The method requires significant refinement – which could take a decade – before a fertility clinic could even consider using it.

Experts said it was an impressive breakthrough, but there needed to be an open discussion with the public about what science was making possible.

Reproduction used to be a simple story of man’s sperm meets woman’s egg. They fuse to make an embryo, and nine months later a baby is born.

Now scientists are changing the rules. This latest experiment starts with human skin.

The Oregon Health and Science University research team’s technique takes the nucleus – which houses a copy of the entire genetic code needed to build the body – out of a skin cell.

This is then placed inside a donor egg that has been stripped of its genetic instructions.

So far, the technique is like the one used to create Dolly the Sheep – the world’s first cloned mammal – born back in 1996.

However, this egg is not ready to be fertilised by sperm as it already contains a full suite of chromosomes.

You inherit 23 of these bundles of DNA from each of your parents for a total of 46, which the egg already has.

So the next stage is to persuade the egg to discard half of its chromosomes in a process the researchers have termed “mitomeiosis” (the word is a fusion of mitosis and meiosis, the two ways cells divide).

Keep reading