All posts tagged: generate

AI Agents Now Generate More Web Traffic Than Humans

AI Agents Now Generate More Web Traffic Than Humans

Published by skeptic

The internet just crossed a remarkable threshold. Agentic AI internet traffic now exceeds that of real humans for the first time. “Welp, that happened faster than I predicted,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said in a post on X on Wednesday. “Thought it would be [at the] end of 2027, then early 2027, but agentic traffic [is] growing so fast that bots have now passed human traffic online for the first time in the Internet’s history.” He backed up his claim with a post to Cloudflare Radar, the company’s internet measurement system, showing that agentic bot usage is up to 57.4% of total traffic, while human traffic has dropped to 42.6%.  Prince said in another post that the data is “a bit messy” but “clearly on the other side now,” indicating this is a trend that isn’t going away.  Agentic AI traffic now exceeds that of real human users. Cloudflare These are not the bots you’re looking for It is important to clarify what Prince refers to regarding web traffic. Regular bots, like search engine scrapers and …

Utility companies want to pay you to generate power for the grid

Utility companies want to pay you to generate power for the grid

Published by Sam Flores

HOUSTON — Jeff and Jenny Wright haven’t paid an electric bill for their Houston home in more than a year. Instead, the couple sells their unused power back to the grid in a system that some states hope can offer a way to help meet surging demand for electricity. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. Americans today pay 40% more, on average, for their electricity than they did just six years ago. Generating their own power makes a big difference for the Wrights and rarely more so than it did this spring, when energy costs soared even higher because of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Nationwide, energy prices jumped 4% in April alone. “I’m getting fairly close to retirement, so cost control for us is a big thing,” said Jeff Wright. The Wrights have solar panels on their roof that are capable of powering the home appliances and the TVs they use on a daily basis. But they also have two Tesla battery packs mounted on …

We could generate hydrogen from rocks while storing CO2 in them

We could generate hydrogen from rocks while storing CO2 in them

Published by skeptic

The Carbfix facility in Iceland Oksana Baliukeviciene/Alamy We desperately need clean hydrogen for processes that cannot be powered by renewable electricity – and it might be possible to generate vast quantities from rocks deep underground while locking away carbon dioxide at the same time. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have shown that this process works for one common rock type in lab studies. They now want to work with companies on field trials. “We hope to demonstrate that we will be able to generate hydrogen economically while sequestering CO2,” says team member Orsolya Gelencsér. It might even be possible to generate geothermal energy at the same time, she says. Burning hydrogen produces only water, so doesn’t cause global warming. Hydrogen could therefore play a major part in achieving net zero, for instance by helping to decarbonise industrial processes such as fertiliser production and steel-making. The problem is that almost all hydrogen is currently made from fossil fuels, meaning lots of CO2 is emitted during its production. One way to avoid these emissions …

She paid an insurance company ,000 to generate retirement income for life. Then it collapsed.

She paid an insurance company $99,000 to generate retirement income for life. Then it collapsed.

Published by Sam Flores

When Annie Benjamin invested $99,000 in an annuity 10 years ago, she trusted the insurance company to provide her with retirement income. She also relied on the company’s regulator to ensure the insurer could meet its obligations. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. Benjamin’s trust in both was misplaced. PHL Variable Insurance Co., a private equity-owned life insurer, collapsed in 2024 and is heading for liquidation. Benjamin’s account is frozen, and 100,000 other PHL policyholders face a $2.2 billion shortfall, public documents show. “What you thought you could depend on you no longer have,” said Benjamin, a retired 3M executive from Minnesota who has an autoimmune disease. “I try not to get emotional about it, but mentally it has really impacted me. Basically, I am stuck.” Annie Benjamin.Courtesy Annie Benjamin With the decline of pensions, a rising number of Americans count on life insurance companies’ promises to generate reliable retirement income, but it’s no longer the staid, steady industry of the past. Aggressive companies affiliated with …

Harry Styles Wembley residency set to generate £1.1bn as fans outspend Taylor Swift and Oasis tours

Harry Styles Wembley residency set to generate £1.1bn as fans outspend Taylor Swift and Oasis tours

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the inside track from Roisin O’Connor with our free weekly music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Get our free music newsletter Now Hear This Harry Styles’ upcoming 12-night residency at Wembley Stadium is projected to inject a staggering £1.1 billion into the economy, driven by dedicated fan spending despite ongoing cost-of-living pressures, new figures reveal. Ticket-holders for the Together, Together tour – which is exclusively limited to London in the UK, are anticipated to spend an average of £981 each. This comprehensive figure covers travel, accommodation, merchandise, and other associated costs, according to a survey commissioned by Barclays bank. This average outlay significantly surpasses the £848 spent by fans attending Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and the £766 for Oasis Live ’25 shows. The disparity is largely attributed to Styles’ UK dates being confined solely to the capital, leading to higher travel and accommodation expenses compared to tours spread across four different UK locations. Beyond the financial commitment, the concerts are fostering a vibrant fan culture. Styles’ devotees …

iOS 27 to Let Users Generate Wallpapers and Build Shortcuts With AI

iOS 27 to Let Users Generate Wallpapers and Build Shortcuts With AI

Published by skeptic

iOS 27 will include a custom wallpaper generator and an option to automatically create shortcuts using AI, reports Bloomberg. When choosing a new wallpaper, users will have the option to generate something custom using the Image Playground app. ‌Image Playground‌ is used for generating custom emoji and images that can be used throughout iOS, and it is set to get an upgrade in ‌iOS 27‌. Apple is testing models that produce more lifelike images, so the version of ‌Image Playground‌ that’s used for generating custom wallpapers could be different from the current version. Shortcuts is also getting a major update, with users able to use natural language to ask Siri to make a shortcut. There is an option for users to tell ‌Siri‌ what they want to accomplish with a shortcut to have the workflow created using AI. Bloomberg says the Shortcuts app has a prompt that says “What do you want your shortcut to do?” with a text field to enter a description. Shortcuts that are created using AI are then automatically installed and …

Amazon’s new Alexa+ powered feature can generate podcast episodes

Amazon’s new Alexa+ powered feature can generate podcast episodes

Published by skeptic

Amazon announced the latest update to Alexa+ on Monday: the ability to generate podcast episodes on demand. The new feature, called “Alexa Podcasts,” is rolling out to customers in the U.S. today. Amazon describes the capability as a way to “turn any topic you’re curious about into a podcast episode, ready in minutes.” To use the feature, all users have to do is ask Alexa+ to create a podcast about a topic they’re interested in. Users don’t need to upload documents, write scripts, or plan anything ahead of time. Instead, Alexa+ researches the request, gathers information, and generates a quick overview of what the episode will cover. From there, users can tweak things like the length, tone, and focus of the episode. Once finalized, Alexa+ uses AI-generated host voices to narrate the podcast. When the episode is ready, users get a notification through their Echo Show device and inside the Alexa app. Episodes are also saved in the app’s “Music” and “More” sections so they can be replayed later. The feature is another example of …

New AI tool can generate millions of new molecules

New AI tool can generate millions of new molecules

Published by Jenni Sidey

Chemists have long faced a maddening problem. The number of possible useful molecules is so vast that even the ones already known amount to only a tiny sliver of what might exist. A research team at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain now says it has built an artificial intelligence system that can push into that unknown territory, generating millions of molecules that do not appear in current databases but still obey the rules of chemistry. The work, published in Nature Machine Intelligence, points to a faster way of exploring chemical space, the nearly unimaginable range of atom combinations that could one day lead to new drugs, materials, refrigerants, or other compounds. The scale of that space is hard to overstate. The authors note that drug-like molecules may number around 10^60, far more than the number of water molecules in Earth’s oceans. That makes molecule discovery less like searching a library and more like sifting a universe. At the center of the new work is a model called CoCoGraph, which works a bit like …

OpenAI drastically updates Codex desktop app to use all other apps on your computer, generate images, preview webpages

OpenAI drastically updates Codex desktop app to use all other apps on your computer, generate images, preview webpages

Published by skeptic

Confirming it has reached 3 million weekly developers, OpenAI is massively updating its Codex developer environment via its Mac and Windows desktop apps today to bring it closer to the “Super App” the company has confirmed it is pursuing. Before today, Codex was primarily an environment for using OpenAI’s underlying language models to write, edit, debug and ship software as directed by the user. Now, Codex will be able to access all of the other apps on your computer, surface relevant information from within them to you when asked or proactively, take actions as directed in said applications, and, in the case of Mac users, even do so while you continue manually using your computer simultaneously to your agents working in the background. Andrew Ambrosino, an OpenAI technical staffer on the Codex team, described the change plainly in an embargoed press briefing I attended virtually yesterday: “Codex can actually click on apps, launch apps, and type into apps. This works with any apps on your machine.”  Codex on desktop is further getting its own built-in …

AI can generate images that are just as effective at triggering human emotions as traditional photographs

AI can generate images that are just as effective at triggering human emotions as traditional photographs

Published by José Betancourt

A recent study provides evidence that artificial intelligence can successfully generate customized images designed to trigger specific human emotions. The findings suggest that these computer-generated pictures work just as well as traditional photographs, while offering the added benefit of being adaptable to different cultures, ages, and genders. The research was published in the journal Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science. Generative AI refers to computer systems that can create new content, such as text or pictures, based on simple written instructions. Scientists often use collections of photographs to study human emotions, a process known as affect induction. By showing participants specific images, researchers can reliably trigger feelings like fear, joy, or disgust in a laboratory setting. This allows scientists to study how emotions influence human behavior and decision making. However, older image collections have started to show their age. Many traditional photographs suffer from low resolution or feature outdated fashion styles that might distract participants from the intended emotion. Existing image databases also tend to lack cultural diversity. Most traditional photos feature Western …