OpenAI has unveiled a new AI tool that turns text into images — and the results are stunning. Named DALL-E 2, the system is the successor to a model unveiled last year. While its predecessor generated some outputs, the new version is a major upgrade. This picture in the style of Claude Monet illustrates the improvements. Credit: OpenAI DALL-E-2 adds enhanced textual comprehension, faster image generation, and four times greater resolution. “When approaching DALL-E 2 we focused on improving the i
Scientists have long understood that the human brain changes in size as we age, but until now there’s never been a method by which we can chart its growth. An international team of researchers led by Cambridge University’s Richard Bethlehem recently published the world’s first growth chart for brains. Up front: How are you supposed to tell if your brain is growing properly? It’s an important question. And we’ve had no answer until now. Most people don’t spend their lives connected to brain imagi
Tesla’s “Cyber Rodeo” party, a grand opening event for the company’s new gigafactory in Texas, had a flamboyance and excessiveness to match Elon Musk’s personality. Fireworks were shot and thousands of drones were deployed in the sky to form a map of the state of Texas, the Cybertruck, and a Shiba Inu dog. Elon gloriously entered the stage wearing a stupid cowboy hat and riding a first-generation Roadster — mind you, to the chill tunes of Dr. Dre’s “Still D.R.E.” Behold the stage of the party! C
There’s a lot of attention right now on the idea of making public transport free. In the first instance, you might think it’s a no-brainer. You can ride public trains, trams, buses, and ferries at no charge. That sounds too good to be true, but they’re a reality in many parts of the world. Over 100 cities have some form of free public transport, but there are many different models of free public transport, each with its own intention and actual impact. What do they achieve when it comes to econo
As desirable vacation destinations go, war-torn Ukraine must surely rate low. But in the first month of Russia’s invasion, Airbnb bookings in Ukraine boomed, as people around the world used the accommodation platform to channel more than US$15 million in donations to the country. As with other forms of direct donation, using Airbnb to channel aid to Ukraine has been problematic. The company was relatively quick to waive the 20% commission it usually charges on transactions. But stopping scammers
EV owners got more than they bargained for when they tried to juice up their cars this week on the Isle of Wight, UK. Three charging points — which were supposed to display the website of the council’s charging network — were hacked to show porn. The issue was brought up by the affected drivers to local paper Country Press, which then reached out to the council. A spokesperson rushed to apologize to “anyone that found the inappropriate web content.” Officers were sent to inspect the EV signage a
I love Star Trek. Or more precisely, I really love the 80s, 90s and 00s Trek. Nothing is more soothing to me than the low hum of the Enterprise D, with Data and Geordi La Forge discussing the alignment of dilithium crystals in their coveted warp core. While most of Star Trek’s ‘technobabble’ is intricately thought out nonsense, it’s no secret that early sci-fi has had a huge influence on the development of real world tech. And while I’ve yet to use a tractor beam to pull a comet out of a traject
I recently attended the Autonomy Mobility Conference in Paris. A great 2-day experience filled with keynotes and great conversations all centred on what’s next in mobility. This is what I learned. First of all, I found it quite fitting that the conference took place in Paris. The mobility landscape of the French capital has been radically transformed during the past two years, and it really shows that the future of mobility is not too far away, if we purposefully work towards changing our infras
We’re in 2022, so grabbing text from a website or a document should be pretty easy, right? But that’s not always the case. There might be part of a site that doesn’t easily let you copy some text, or maybe the text you need to copy is part of an image. So we’re going to talk about a few tools to capture text easily. iPhone Live Text Apple recently rolled out the Live Text feature in iOS 15 that easily lets you copy text using your camera. To make sure this feature is enabled on your iPhone or iP
Whether you fancy yourself as the next Scorsese or want to spruce up your travel vlog, a handy video editor is vital in any digital creator’s toolkit. When you’ve finally captured your footage, and it’s almost ready for the world to see, some quick and simple editing can prevent it from getting lost in the 720,000 hours of video uploaded online every day. Here we’ll break down what you should prioritize in your search for video editing software and tools. Compatibility First things first. You ne