19 h. ago 'Red tape lunacy' to land London accountant with £16,000 bill to replace two windows in his ground floor flat

A Westminster councillor said the requirement to get sign-off from the Building Safety Regulator to change the windows is ‘ridiculous’

Economics

3 d. ago Republicans will be left holding the bill for Trump’s policies in the midterms | Sidney Blumenthal

The abject obedience of GOP members for the president has not augured well in the 4 November electionsThe elections of 4 November were the end of a grandiose illusion. After his 2024 victory Donald Trump claimed he had an “unprecedented and powerful mandate”, that his “mandate” was “massive”, and that his “Maga movement” was irresistible, the wave of the future. It lasted 10 months, in which he had betrayed his chief promise to lower inflation, turned the public against him on every issue and Republicans at last faced a battering by voters.Trump’s image of omnipotence has rested upon a pyramid of dread. His ability to maintain the servility of the Republican Congress, whose members are intimidated by the danger that if they defy him he would support primary opponents to run against them, has been the political foundation for all the other forms of fear he incites throughout American institutions. Trump could not have leveraged himself as “dictator on day one” without congressional a...

Politics

4 d. ago Google DeepMind eyes AI robots after hiring Boston Dynamics CTO

Google wants to build robots that perform tasks at a similar or better level than humans

Technology

5 d. ago Putin says he wants to live to 150 ‘but even that’s not enough’ as brute obsessed with eternal life meets eerie humanoid

LIVING to 150 isn't long enough, says tyrannical Russian leader Vladimir Putin, following a bizarre meeting with a dancing humanoid. Putin, 73, appeared bewitched by the boogying robot, named Green, at an exhibition is Moscow yesterday before telling audiences being 150 years old would be a let down. Wary Kremlin guards kept a close eye...

Politics

5 d. ago Kindle Paperwhite price drops to lowest ever level on Amazon, CamelCamelCamel confirms

The newest Kindle Paperwhite has fallen to its lowest recorded price, making it one of Amazon’s fastest-selling early Christmas tech deals.

Economics

5 d. ago New cycle hub and toilet facility at Castle Semple Country Park in Lochwinnoch edges closer

More than £700,000 invested in resource that will replace existing rundown block undergoing demolition.

Politics

5 d. ago Energy expert says Brits may lose heating this winter if they don't do one thing

Energy suppliers have replaced over a quarter of a million RTS meters across the country but there are still 172,000 left across Great Britain to replace so there's still a long way to go

Science

5 d. ago How generative AI in Arc Raiders started a scrap over the gaming industry’s future

The use of AI in the surprise game-of-the-year contender has sparked a heated cultural and ethical debate, and raised existential questions for artists, writers and voice actors• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereArc Raiders is, by all accounts, a late game-of-the-year contender. Dropped into a multiplayer world overrun with hostile drones and military robots, every human player is at the mercy of the machines – and each other. Can you trust the other raider you’ve spotted on your way back to humanity’s safe haven underground, or will they shoot you and take everything you’ve just scavenged? Perhaps surprisingly, humanity is (mostly) choosing to band together, according to most people I’ve talked to about this game.In a review for Gamespot, Mark Delaney paints a beguiling picture of Arc Raiders’s potential for generating war stories, and highlights its surprisingly hopeful tone as the thing that elevates it above similar multiplayer extraction shooters: ...

Politics

7 d. ago Mind the glitch: is Hollywood finally getting to grips with movies about artificial intelligence?

As Gore Verbinski’s AI-apocalypse film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die hurtles towards us, it’s clear from the over-caffeinated trailer that we won’t be getting another ponderous parable about robot souls, digital enlightenment or the hubris of manIt’s easy to forget, given the current glut of robot-uprising doom flicks, that Hollywood has been doing the artificial intelligence thing for decades – long before anything resembling true AI existed in the real world. And now we live in an era in which a chatbot can write a passable sonnet, it is perhaps surprising that there hasn’t been a huge shift in how film-makers approach this particular corner of sci-fi.Gareth Edwards’ The Creator (2023) is essentially the same story about AIs being the newly persecuted underclass as 1962’s The Creation of the Humanoids, except that the former has an $80m VFX budget and robot monks while the latter has community-theatre production values. Moon (2009) and 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey are both about ...

Culture

1 week ago Chilling moment humanoid Chinese robot ARMY marches for ‘first mass delivery’ of futuristic machines coming for our jobs

THIS is the chilling moment a humanoid robot army marches through a factory in China in perfect unison. Shenzhen-based UBTECH Robotics released a nightmarish video of hundreds of the industrial robots walking themselves into shipping containers, as the company announced the world's first "mass delivery" of the human-esque gadgets. The video, announcing the production of...

Society

1 week ago Russia’s first humanoid robot collapses seconds after unveiling

Russia’s first humanoid AI robot stumbled and fell over just seconds after its official introduction.

Politics

1 week ago Russia unveils humanoid AI robot that immediately collapses on stage

The robot's debut in Moscow went awry on Tuesday when the robot - believed to be Russia's first powered by artificial intelligence - took a tumble.

Politics

2 w. ago Nothing to hide here! Humanoid robot moves so smoothly, its inventor is forced to cut it open to prove there's not a person hiding inside

A new humanoid robot has reached new depths of the uncanny valley with its smooth, humanlike movements.

Politics

2 w. ago Russia mounts massive revenge strike in overnight attack on Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin orders massive wave of drone and guided bomb attacks on Ukraine's civilian population in revenge for Kyiv's secret units smashing his oil refineries

Events

2 w. ago Tesla shareholders to vote on $1tn pay package for CEO Elon Musk

If approved, the CEO will need to increase Tesla’s value eightfold, to $8.5tn in market capitalization, by 2035Tesla shareholders met on Thursday to vote on a compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk worth close to $1tn. If approved, the package will demonstrate shareholders’ confidence the billionaire can lead his car company into an era dominated by artificial intelligence and robotics. If denied, Tesla may face the loss of a leader who once made the company name synonymous with electric vehicles.If Musk delivers on the lofty milestones in the pay package laid out at Tesla’s 6 November annual meeting, he could become the world’s first trillionaire. To do so, he will need to guide Tesla to $8.5tn in market capitalization, eight times what it’s worth today. He will also be required to deploy millions of autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots and sustain the company’s bottom line in the hundreds of billions over the next decade. Continue reading...

Economics

3 w. ago Chefs, your jobs are safe for now! Humanoid robot attempts to cook a stir

In a viral video, which has amassed over 6.3 million views, a humanoid robot attempts to make a stir-fry for its owner - with disastrous results.

Society

3 w. ago Can this new 'laser in a bottle' cream replace £1,000 clinic facials? Here's our verdict

Our head of beauty tries SkinCeutical's new Advanced RGN-6 Rejuvenation Cream for 10 days to test the hype

Economics

3 w. ago ‘The Jetsons’ comes to life as first robot housekeeper hits market in the US. But this Rosey comes with a hefty price tag

NEO, the humanoid robot, will perform basic household tasks, like opening doors and turning lights on or off, initially under human operator control

Economics

3 w. ago World's first humanoid robot available to buy now is not all it seems – here's why

Humanoid robot NEO has a height of 5'6'', weighs 66 pounds and has the 'dexterity of a human', according to an advertisement released by tech firm 1X, but a YouTuber said all is not as it seems

Politics

4 w. ago Amazon confirms it has replaced 14,000 humans with robots amid first wave of massive layoff

'Some may ask why we're reducing roles when the company is performing well,' a top boss wrote.

Politics