Share
An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed. Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from £375 a month down to as low as £40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub – a small data centre containing more than 500 computers. Data centres are banks of computers which carry out digital tasks. As the computers process data, they generate lots of heat, which is captured by oil and then transferred into the Bridges’ hot water system. BBC
Markets were on edge this week as a steady stream of negative headlines around the artificial intelligence trade stoked fears of a bubble. Famed short-seller Michael Burry cast doubt on the sustainability of AI earnings. Concerns around the levels of debt funding AI infrastructure buildouts grew louder. And once high-flyers like CoreWeave tanked on disappointing guidance. CNBC
The founder of ChatGPT is backing a controversial genetic engineering startup that aims to eliminate hereditary diseases from babies. Sam Altman, the chief executive of ChatGPT owner OpenAI, is among investors in a $30m (£22.7m) funding round for Preventive, a US business aiming to “correct devastating genetic conditions for future children”. The company, headquartered in San Francisco, has raised funds from a clutch of technology billionaires and is reportedly seeking a jurisdiction to legally conduct its experiments. Telegraph
A university hopes its new virtual production studio will put it at the forefront of the next generation of filmmaking in the UK. The video wall creates the illusion of actors, creators or even newsreaders being in any location imaginable – all from a hangar in Mile Cross in Norwich, and at a fraction of traditional production costs. Film students at the Norwich University of the Arts (Nua), which built the studio in partnership with Sony and Target 3D, described the technology now available to them as “insane”. BBC
The father of Molly Russell (pictured above), a British teenager who killed herself after viewing harmful online content, has called for a change in leadership at the UK’s communications watchdog after losing faith in its ability to make the internet safer for children. Ian Russell, whose 14 year-old daughter took her own life in 2017, said Ofcom had “repeatedly” demonstrated that it does not grasp the urgency of keeping under-18s safe online and was failing to implement new digital laws forcefully. The Guardian
This week, many of the tech world’s glitterati gathered in Lisbon for Web Summit, a sprawling conference showcasing everything from dancing robots to the influencer economy. In the pavilions – warehouse-sized rooms chock full of stages, booths and people networking – the phrase “agentic AI” was everywhere. There were AI agents that hung around your neck in jewellery, software to build agents into your workflows and more than 20 panel discussions on the topic. Sky News
Related Posts
Discover more from Tech Digest
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Chris Price
Source link