Month: January 2024
First Lab-Grown Eel Meat Revealed
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The first lab-grown freshwater eel meat has been produced, potentially solving a diner’s dilemma. Rampant overfishing has caused eel populations to plummet and prices to soar, but the cultivated eel could provide the delicacy guilt-free. The eel meat was produced by Forsea Foods in Israel from embryonic cells of a freshwater eel. The company collaborated with a Japanese chef to create unagi kabayaki, marinated grilled eel over rice, and unagi nigiri, a type of sushi.
The company aims to scale up its operation and have the cultivated eel on sale in about two years. Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, last year backed the development of a cultivated meat industry. The restaurant price in Japan is about $250 a kilogram, and Forsea Foods expects the price of the cultivated eel to match that of the wild-caught eel. […] Forsea Foods’ strategy is to target species at risk of extinction in the wild that also command high prices in restaurants and shops, with eel meeting both criteria. The very complex life cycle of eels, involving long migrations from rivers to the ocean and several distinct life stages, means it is not possible to farm them like some fish.
The cultivated eel was produced using organoids, tiny bundles of tissue originally developed for use in medical research. The organoids are made of embryonic stem cells taken from fertilized eel eggs. These cells can develop into any kind of tissue and, as they grow, they self-organize into the structure of real meat. The final product also contains some plant-based ingredients. Other approaches to cultivated meat require greater use of expensive growth factor chemicals and scaffolds for cells to grow on […]. The technique is particularly suited to fish and seafood, whose meat is fairly uniform unlike, for example, marbled beef, he said. Like other cultivated meat, the product is not produced using antibiotics or hormones. Forsea Foods is the only company known to be producing cultivated meat using this technology. The company has raised $5.2 million in investment, with more expected to be announced soon.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The first lab-grown freshwater eel meat has been produced, potentially solving a diner’s dilemma. Rampant overfishing has caused eel populations to plummet and prices to soar, but the cultivated eel could provide the delicacy guilt-free. The eel meat was produced by Forsea Foods in Israel from embryonic cells of a freshwater eel. The company collaborated with a Japanese chef to create unagi kabayaki, marinated grilled eel over rice, and unagi nigiri, a type of sushi.
The company aims to scale up its operation and have the cultivated eel on sale in about two years. Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, last year backed the development of a cultivated meat industry. The restaurant price in Japan is about $250 a kilogram, and Forsea Foods expects the price of the cultivated eel to match that of the wild-caught eel. […] Forsea Foods’ strategy is to target species at risk of extinction in the wild that also command high prices in restaurants and shops, with eel meeting both criteria. The very complex life cycle of eels, involving long migrations from rivers to the ocean and several distinct life stages, means it is not possible to farm them like some fish.
The cultivated eel was produced using organoids, tiny bundles of tissue originally developed for use in medical research. The organoids are made of embryonic stem cells taken from fertilized eel eggs. These cells can develop into any kind of tissue and, as they grow, they self-organize into the structure of real meat. The final product also contains some plant-based ingredients. Other approaches to cultivated meat require greater use of expensive growth factor chemicals and scaffolds for cells to grow on […]. The technique is particularly suited to fish and seafood, whose meat is fairly uniform unlike, for example, marbled beef, he said. Like other cultivated meat, the product is not produced using antibiotics or hormones. Forsea Foods is the only company known to be producing cultivated meat using this technology. The company has raised $5.2 million in investment, with more expected to be announced soon.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Vision Pro Reviews: Surprising Battery Life, ‘Weird’ Personas, and More
The first full-length reviews of the Apple Vision Pro were published today, revealing some new details about the headset before it launches in the U.S. on Friday.
To learn more, check out our roundup of Apple Vision Pro reviews and unboxing videos.
Battery Life
Apple says the Vision Pro provides up to two hours of battery life overall, and up to 2.5 hours for 2D video playback specifically. In his review, however, Brian Tong said he achieved nearly 2.5 hours of battery life for general usage, and separately was able to watch the three-hour movie Avengers: Endgame on a single charge.
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber also said he has consistently got at least three hours of battery life on a full charge, but he did not list any specific use cases.
All in all, it seems that the Vision Pro may last up to 30 minutes longer per charge than Apple’s advertised battery life claims, but results will vary.
Home Screen
According to Tong, third-party apps on visionOS are listed alphabetically starting on the second page of the Home Screen, and cannot be reordered like they can be on the iPhone and iPad. Apps cannot be placed into folders either.
Image Credit: Brian Tong
He also confirmed that websites cannot be added to the Home Screen via Safari, which is inconvenient given that some popular services like YouTube and Spotify will only be accessible via the web on the Vision Pro at launch.
Apple could add these options in future visionOS updates.
Personas and EyeSight
Since the Vision Pro covers your face during video calls, Apple allows you to create a digital version of yourself called a Persona.
Apple refers to a Persona as an “authentic spatial representation” of a person that shows facial expressions and hand movements in real time. The feature is still in beta, and it seems that Apple has a lot of room for improvement.
Image Credit: Brian Tong
The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern:On FaceTimes with friends and family, the reviews were unanimous: “You look awful,” my sister said. “It’s like Botox from hell,” remarked the always-kind Jason Gay. “Frightening,” said my dad.
Calling other Vision Pro reviewers was slightly better because we all looked ridiculous. But everyone agreed I looked the worst. And this was after I remade my Persona numerous times, with professional lighting.Poor Joanna! (She’s still amazing, nothing can change that!)
The Verge’s Nilay Patel:I won’t go into that much detail on Apple’s deeply weird and extremely uncanny 3D persona system here You can see why Apple put the beta label on them; there’s a long way to go before using a persona on a call isn’t distracting at best and, at worst, extremely rude.Personas extend to the Vision Pro’s outer display, allowing others to view a digital recreation of your eyes. This feature is called EyeSight, and it has mostly been panned on social media since Vision Pro reviews were first published earlier today.
The most surprising takeaway from all the Vision Pro reviews/videos is how universally awful the EyeSight display is. Until today, I expected it to be super important to the “I’m still in the real world” experience. Now, I’m 95% sure it’ll be canned by the 2nd gen. pic.twitter.com/H90Wa3ckL7— Snazzy Labs (@SnazzyLabs) January 30, 2024 Mac Virtual Display
Many reviewers shared their thoughts on using the Vision Pro as an external display for a Mac.
CNET’s Scott Stein was impressed:What if my desk was just floating monitors? What if I didn’t need anything but a headset? Vision Pro gets close to that feeling when all the apps are open and the flow is going. I’m doing that now. I’m in my virtual floating computer as I write this. There are glitches, and sometimes the controls feel too floaty, but in its first form, I’m shocked at how good it already is.However, he mentioned a caveat:And while the Vision Pro’s display is great as a monitor, staring into 3D space for a while puts my eyes into a different focus zone than actual reality. Taking the headset off to work on my laptop, my eyes need time to settle and refocus. I feel myself slipping into long sessions in Vision Pro, but my eyes want me to take breaks.Tom’s Guide’s Mark Spoonauer:One of the options in Control Center is the ability to connect with your Mac, but you can also bring your Mac desktop into the Vision Pro just by looking at it. I saw a Connect button floating above my MacBook Pro 14-inch, pinched my fingers together and saw my laptop’s screen go blank, popping up on the wall in front of me instead.
You don’t get multiple desktop views, but you do get a crystal clear 4K display that renders text crisply, and you can make that canvas positively huge so it dwarfs most of the best monitors. Your keyboard and mouse still work as they normally would with no latency. You can even use your keyboard in Vision Pro apps if you want. Yes, only Apple could do this, and I could see myself taking the Vision Pro on business trips and using it back at the hotel.Stay tuned for additional details about the Vision Pro over the coming days.Related Roundups: Apple Vision Pro, visionOSBuyer’s Guide: Vision Pro (Buy Now)Related Forum: Apple Vision ProThis article, “Vision Pro Reviews: Surprising Battery Life, ‘Weird’ Personas, and More” first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums
The first full-length reviews of the Apple Vision Pro were published today, revealing some new details about the headset before it launches in the U.S. on Friday.
To learn more, check out our roundup of Apple Vision Pro reviews and unboxing videos.
Battery Life
Apple says the Vision Pro provides up to two hours of battery life overall, and up to 2.5 hours for 2D video playback specifically. In his review, however, Brian Tong said he achieved nearly 2.5 hours of battery life for general usage, and separately was able to watch the three-hour movie Avengers: Endgame on a single charge.
Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber also said he has consistently got at least three hours of battery life on a full charge, but he did not list any specific use cases.
All in all, it seems that the Vision Pro may last up to 30 minutes longer per charge than Apple’s advertised battery life claims, but results will vary.
Home Screen
According to Tong, third-party apps on visionOS are listed alphabetically starting on the second page of the Home Screen, and cannot be reordered like they can be on the iPhone and iPad. Apps cannot be placed into folders either.
He also confirmed that websites cannot be added to the Home Screen via Safari, which is inconvenient given that some popular services like YouTube and Spotify will only be accessible via the web on the Vision Pro at launch.
Apple could add these options in future visionOS updates.
Personas and EyeSight
Since the Vision Pro covers your face during video calls, Apple allows you to create a digital version of yourself called a Persona.
Apple refers to a Persona as an “authentic spatial representation” of a person that shows facial expressions and hand movements in real time. The feature is still in beta, and it seems that Apple has a lot of room for improvement.
The Wall Street Journal‘s Joanna Stern:On FaceTimes with friends and family, the reviews were unanimous: “You look awful,” my sister said. “It’s like Botox from hell,” remarked the always-kind Jason Gay. “Frightening,” said my dad.
Calling other Vision Pro reviewers was slightly better because we all looked ridiculous. But everyone agreed I looked the worst. And this was after I remade my Persona numerous times, with professional lighting.Poor Joanna! (She’s still amazing, nothing can change that!)
The Verge‘s Nilay Patel:I won’t go into that much detail on Apple’s deeply weird and extremely uncanny 3D persona system here […] You can see why Apple put the beta label on them; there’s a long way to go before using a persona on a call isn’t distracting at best and, at worst, extremely rude.Personas extend to the Vision Pro’s outer display, allowing others to view a digital recreation of your eyes. This feature is called EyeSight, and it has mostly been panned on social media since Vision Pro reviews were first published earlier today.
The most surprising takeaway from all the Vision Pro reviews/videos is how universally awful the EyeSight display is. Until today, I expected it to be super important to the “I’m still in the real world” experience. Now, I’m 95% sure it’ll be canned by the 2nd gen. pic.twitter.com/H90Wa3ckL7
— Snazzy Labs (@SnazzyLabs) January 30, 2024
Mac Virtual Display
Many reviewers shared their thoughts on using the Vision Pro as an external display for a Mac.
CNET‘s Scott Stein was impressed:What if my desk was just floating monitors? What if I didn’t need anything but a headset? Vision Pro gets close to that feeling when all the apps are open and the flow is going. I’m doing that now. I’m in my virtual floating computer as I write this. There are glitches, and sometimes the controls feel too floaty, but in its first form, I’m shocked at how good it already is.However, he mentioned a caveat:And while the Vision Pro’s display is great as a monitor, staring into 3D space for a while puts my eyes into a different focus zone than actual reality. Taking the headset off to work on my laptop, my eyes need time to settle and refocus. I feel myself slipping into long sessions in Vision Pro, but my eyes want me to take breaks.Tom’s Guide‘s Mark Spoonauer:One of the options in Control Center is the ability to connect with your Mac, but you can also bring your Mac desktop into the Vision Pro just by looking at it. I saw a Connect button floating above my MacBook Pro 14-inch, pinched my fingers together and saw my laptop’s screen go blank, popping up on the wall in front of me instead.
You don’t get multiple desktop views, but you do get a crystal clear 4K display that renders text crisply, and you can make that canvas positively huge so it dwarfs most of the best monitors. Your keyboard and mouse still work as they normally would with no latency. You can even use your keyboard in Vision Pro apps if you want. Yes, only Apple could do this, and I could see myself taking the Vision Pro on business trips and using it back at the hotel.Stay tuned for additional details about the Vision Pro over the coming days.
This article, “Vision Pro Reviews: Surprising Battery Life, ‘Weird’ Personas, and More” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
Wordle today: Here’s the answer and hints for January 31
Here’s the answer for “Wordle” #956 on January 31, as well as a few hints, tips, and clues to help you solve it yourself.
Oh hey there! If you’re here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we’re serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today’s answer.
If you just want to be told today’s word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for Jan. 31’s Wordle solution revealed. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
Where did Wordle come from?
Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.
Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Wordle.
What’s the best Wordle starting word?
The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.
What happened to the Wordle archive?
The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles used to be available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it. Unfortunately, it has since been taken down, with the website’s creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times.
Is Wordle getting harder?
It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn’t any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle‘s Hard Mode if you’re after more of a challenge, though.
Here’s a subtle hint for today’s Wordle answer:
To get big.
Does today’s Wordle answer have a double letter?
No letters appear twice.
Today’s Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with…
Today’s Wordle starts with the letter B.
What’s the answer to Wordle today?
Get your last guesses in now, because it’s your final chance to solve today’s Wordle before we reveal the solution.
Drumroll please!
The solution to Wordle #956 is…
BULKY.
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Reporting by Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.
Toby Stephens breaks down Poseidon’s big sacrifice in ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’
Toby Stephens, who plays Poseidon in “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” talks Poseidon and Percy’s first onscreen meeting.
To say Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) has a complicated relationship with his father would be like calling the Pacific Ocean a puddle.
For starters, there’s the bombshell that his father is none other than the Greek god Poseidon (Toby Stephens). Then there’s all the baggage that comes with that, like Poseidon not being able to support Percy or his mother Sally (Virginia Kull) except from afar, or legends of Poseidon’s cruelty and mistreatment of mortals such as Medusa (Jessica Parker Kennedy).
How ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ pulled off Poseidon and Sally’s emotional diner chat
There are also moments throughout Percy Jackson and the Olympians where we see Percy connect with his father. When Percy leaps from the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Poseidon sends a water funnel to save him. Before Percy completes his quest, Poseidon provides him with four pearls that will help save him, Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), Grover (Aryan Simhadri), and Sally escape the Underworld. And in a flashback discussion with Sally in episode 7, we see that Poseidon truly does care for Percy in a way we wouldn’t understand from solely seeing Percy’s point of view.
All of these moments come to a head in Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ Season 1 finale, when Percy and Poseidon finally meet face to face on Mount Olympus. In a shift from the books, Percy arrives on Olympus after the deadline to return Zeus’ (Lance Riddick) Master Bolt passes, meaning Poseidon and Zeus are officially at war. Yet when Zeus attempts to strike Percy down, Poseidon gets between them and surrenders — a move that feels less like a prideful Olympian and more like a father prepared to lay down his life for his child.
“It’s a sacrifice Poseidon makes for his son, and it’s a huge thing,” Stephens told Mashable in a video interview. But is Percy aware of just how major this sacrifice is?
“That moment between Zeus and Poseidon is not seen by Percy,” said Stephens. “He doesn’t fully understand what happened, and I liked that. When Poseidon turns around to Percy, it’s like, ‘You don’t realize what you’ve cost me,’ but he’s not going to let him know that. Instead, he’s like, ‘You’re trouble, but I love you and I’m proud of you at the same time. And I’m willing to save you.'”
For Stephens and for showrunners Jonathan Steinberg and Dan Shotz, that genuine connection with Percy and Sally was crucial for understanding the role of Poseidon. “They wanted to make the relationship between Poseidon, Percy, and Percy’s mom feel real, and to have a kind of complexity to it,” Stephens said.
That undercurrent of complexity runs through Percy and Poseidon’s entire conversation, but especially in the moment when Percy asks Poseidon if he ever dreams about Sally. Instead of answering, Poseidon takes a silent beat before deflecting. Yet for Stephens, that silence speaks volumes.
“He’s like, ‘Yeah, I dream about her all the time, and it’s incredibly painful. And if only I could talk to you about it, but I’m not going to do that,'” Stephens explained. “There is that side of our parents that is always mysterious. You can be incredibly close to your parents, but there’s an interior life and and interior history that you cannot have access to. I think that moment [with Percy] opens up the question, ‘What is that about for Poseidon? What is going on in there?’ And that’s what you want to leave the audience with.”
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is now streaming on Disney+.
Lawmakers propose anti-nonconsensual AI porn bill after Taylor Swift controversy
Photo by Kathryn Riley/Getty Images
US lawmakers have proposed letting people sue over faked pornographic images of themselves, following the spread of AI-generated explicit photographs of Taylor Swift. The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act would add a civil right of action for intimate “digital forgeries” depicting an identifiable person without their consent, letting victims collect financial damages from anyone who “knowingly produced or possessed” the image with the intent to spread it.
The bill was introduced by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), joined by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Josh Hawley (R-MO). It builds on a provision in the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022, which added a similar right of action for non-faked explicit images. In a summary, the sponsors described it as a response to an “exponentially” growing volume of digitally manipulated explicit AI images, referencing Swift’s case as an example of how the fakes can be “used to exploit and harass women — particularly public figures, politicians, and celebrities.”
Pornographic AI-manipulated images, frequently referred to as deepfakes, have grown in popularity and sophistication since the term was coined in 2017. Off-the-shelf generative AI tools have made them far easier to produce, even on systems with guardrails against explicit imagery or impersonation, and they’ve been used for harassment and blackmail. But so far, there’s no clear legal redress in many parts of the US. Nearly all states have passed laws banning unsimulated nonconsensual pornography, though it’s been a slow process. Far fewer have laws addressing simulated imagery. (There’s no federal criminal law directly banning either type.) But it’s part of President Joe Biden’s AI regulation agenda, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Congress to pass new laws in response to the Taylor Swift incident last week.
The DEFIANCE Act was introduced in response to AI-generated images, but it’s not limited to them. It counts a forgery as any “intimate” sexual image (a term defined in the underlying rule) created by “software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means … to appear to a reasonable person to be indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.” That includes real pictures that have been modified to look sexually explicit. Its language seemingly applies to older tools like Photoshop, as long as the result is sufficiently realistic. Adding a label marking the image as inauthentic doesn’t remove the liability, either.
Members of Congress have floated numerous bills addressing AI and nonconsensual pornography, and most have yet to pass. Earlier this month lawmakers introduced the No AI FRAUD Act, an extremely broad ban on using tech to imitate someone without permission. A blanket impersonation rule raises huge questions about artistic expression, though; it could let powerful figures sue over political parodies, reenactments, or creative fictional treatments. The DEFIANCE Act could raise some of the same questions, but it’s significantly more limited — although it still faces an uphill battle to passage.
Photo by Kathryn Riley/Getty Images
US lawmakers have proposed letting people sue over faked pornographic images of themselves, following the spread of AI-generated explicit photographs of Taylor Swift. The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act would add a civil right of action for intimate “digital forgeries” depicting an identifiable person without their consent, letting victims collect financial damages from anyone who “knowingly produced or possessed” the image with the intent to spread it.
The bill was introduced by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), joined by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Josh Hawley (R-MO). It builds on a provision in the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022, which added a similar right of action for non-faked explicit images. In a summary, the sponsors described it as a response to an “exponentially” growing volume of digitally manipulated explicit AI images, referencing Swift’s case as an example of how the fakes can be “used to exploit and harass women — particularly public figures, politicians, and celebrities.”
Pornographic AI-manipulated images, frequently referred to as deepfakes, have grown in popularity and sophistication since the term was coined in 2017. Off-the-shelf generative AI tools have made them far easier to produce, even on systems with guardrails against explicit imagery or impersonation, and they’ve been used for harassment and blackmail. But so far, there’s no clear legal redress in many parts of the US. Nearly all states have passed laws banning unsimulated nonconsensual pornography, though it’s been a slow process. Far fewer have laws addressing simulated imagery. (There’s no federal criminal law directly banning either type.) But it’s part of President Joe Biden’s AI regulation agenda, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Congress to pass new laws in response to the Taylor Swift incident last week.
The DEFIANCE Act was introduced in response to AI-generated images, but it’s not limited to them. It counts a forgery as any “intimate” sexual image (a term defined in the underlying rule) created by “software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means … to appear to a reasonable person to be indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.” That includes real pictures that have been modified to look sexually explicit. Its language seemingly applies to older tools like Photoshop, as long as the result is sufficiently realistic. Adding a label marking the image as inauthentic doesn’t remove the liability, either.
Members of Congress have floated numerous bills addressing AI and nonconsensual pornography, and most have yet to pass. Earlier this month lawmakers introduced the No AI FRAUD Act, an extremely broad ban on using tech to imitate someone without permission. A blanket impersonation rule raises huge questions about artistic expression, though; it could let powerful figures sue over political parodies, reenactments, or creative fictional treatments. The DEFIANCE Act could raise some of the same questions, but it’s significantly more limited — although it still faces an uphill battle to passage.
Taylor Swift AI images prompt US bill to tackle nonconsensual, sexual deepfakes
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