Deepfake technology concerns trigger urgent search for answers among journalists, crime investigators
Deepfake video methods can digitally alter a person’s lip movements to match words that they never said. As part of an effort to grow awareness about such technologies through art, the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality created a fake video showing former US President Richard Nixon giving a speech about...
In a post-truth world, synthetic media and photorealism are a boon to ‘fake news industry’
Some snapshots may look like people you’d know. Your daughter’s best friend from college, maybe? That guy from human resources at work? The emergency-room doctor who took care of your sprained ankle? One of the kids from down the street? Nope. All of these images are “deepfakes” – the nickname...
Much as Covid is ravaging the world, ‘without viruses, we would not be alive’
Mya Breitbart has hunted novel viruses in African termite mounds, Antarctic seals and water from the Red Sea. But to hit pay dirt, she has only to step into her back garden in Florida. Hanging around her swimming pool are spiny-backed orbweavers (Gasteracantha cancriformis) – striking spiders with bulbous white...
GE Healthcare props DR Congo fight against Covid with mobile X-ray units and ECG machines
GE Healthcare will partner with the Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of Congo to deliver mobile X-ray units and ECG machines to support the fight Covid-19. The essential medical equipment will play an important role in supporting the diagnosis and the management of Covid-19, in a country where...
Tecno preparing to reissue its Phantom smartphone as a flagship sub-brand
Tecno, the leading smartphone brand in global emerging market, is said to have re-issued Phantom as its flagship sub-brand, aiming to tackle the premium smartphone market amid an ambitious global expansion plan. The smartphone industry is never short of changes and competition. As Tecno is gaining more and more reputation...
Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack fears surveillance gadget exports threaten press freedom
“Many countries are using these technologies to put people in jail,” Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack told Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in a recent video interview. Mack was describing how advanced surveillance capabilities such as those that CPJ has documented are being used to target journalists like Omar Radi and...
Jupiter’s Ganymede, largest moon in solar system, looks amazing in NASA’s photos
On June 7, NASA’s Juno probe zoomed within just 1,038 kilometres of Jupiter’s enormous satellite Ganymede, which is bigger than the planet Mercury. It was the closest any probe had come to Ganymede since May 2000, when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft got within about 1,000 km of the moon’s icy surface....
World media censure Indonesian government for draconian internet regulation
Media organisations in the world have written a joint letter to Indonesia’s minister of Communication and Information Technology calling on him to rescind Ministerial Regulation 5/2020 (MR5) that allows media companies and owners to monitor content. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Alliance of Independent Journalists...
‘Deepfake’ maps that will show you’re in London, not Nairobi, coming soon
Satellite images showing the expansion of large detention camps in Xinjiang, China, between 2016 and 2018 provided some of the strongest evidence of a government crackdown on more than a million Muslims, triggering international condemnation and sanctions. Other aerial images – of nuclear installations in Iran and missile sites in...
Risks of remote presence: Your online content can be screenshot, misused
Remote attendance of events, including work, has its own challenges: you leave a lot in your trail that can work against you. Recording of such events has its own social and professional risks that you need to be aware of and give informed consent or decline where appropriate. This may...
