Subscribe now

AIs trained on AI-generated images produce glitches and blurs

18 July 2023

Using AI-generated images to train AI quickly creates a loop where the results get worse in either quality or visual diversity


Google search page

AI search heats up as Google and Baidu race to launch ChatGPT rivals

7 February 2023

Google Bard and Baidu's Ernie Bot are set to go head-to-head with OpenAI's ChatGPT as tech giants race to combine AI chatbots with search engines


Google Ads

The US government is suing Google – again

25 January 2023

A new US government lawsuit alleges that Google has harmed innovation and raised costs for internet users by attempting to monopolise the digital advertising industry


A Wi-Fi transmitter and a woman working in the background

The outline of people’s bodies can be detected from Wi-Fi signals

25 January 2023

Machine learning can analyse how the signals from Wi-Fi transmitters are disrupted by human bodies to reveal what position people are sitting, standing or lying in


Laptop screens showing various website

Online adverts estimated to use as much energy as a small country

18 November 2022

An AI that tracks digital ads’ energy consumption could help tech companies and advertisers to act more sustainably


A phone screen showing Bing and Google Chrome apps

Top 10 search results from Google and Bing differ by up to 75 per cent

22 July 2022

An analysis of search results in the US and Germany found that the top 10 results from Google and other search engines differ widely


EJ6958 Male looking at the website of Reddit

Reddit moderators do $3.4 million worth of unpaid work each year

24 June 2022

Volunteers who maintain the standard of content on Reddit’s forums do 466 hours of work every day – labour that would cost 2.8 per cent of the firm’s revenue


Someone logging into a website

75 per cent of the world's top websites allow bad passwords

23 June 2022

An analysis of 120 of the world's top-ranked English-language websites has found that many of them allow weak passwords, including those that can be easily guessed, such as “abc123456” and “P@$$w0rd”


Copper wire

Ordinary copper telephone wire could carry gigabit broadband speeds

26 April 2022

Many homes in the UK rely on repurposed phone lines for internet access, leading to slow download speeds, but there may be a solution


iPhone

Proposed EU law could force WhatsApp and iMessage to work together

25 March 2022

The European Union is close to agreeing the Digital Markets Act, which would require big tech firms to open up their services to wider competition


Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox. We'll also keep you up to date with New Scientist events and special offers.

Sign up
Piano Exit Overlay Banner Mobile Piano Exit Overlay Banner Desktop