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A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo have penned a new paper detailing the capabilities of a new artificial intelligence-powered system that can translate chicken clucks.

The paper has been published on a pre-print server and is yet to be peer-reviewed, but it details a new "cutting-edge" AI technique that the team calls "Deep Emotional Analysis Learning. The University of Tokyo researchers write they devised a new system capable of"interpreting various emotional states in chickens, including hunger, fear, anger, contentment, excitement, and distress".

As with most things to do with artificial intelligence, the new system is powered by what the researchers call "complex mathematical algorithms" that get better over time as different variations of chicken vocal patterns are added to the database. The study explains that the researchers recorded and analyzed 80 chicken vocal samples, applying different "emotional states" to the different sounds. According to the researchers, the team was able to predict a chicken's emotional state accurately.

Newly leaked documents reveal our first real look at Xbox's profits.

Microsoft is very selective in what data it releases on its various divisions. This includes gaming, which is now Microsoft's fourth best-earning business in terms of revenue with $15.4 billion earned in FY23. Every quarter, Microsoft will report three metrics on the Xbox business: content & services earnings, hardware revenues, and a finalized Xbox gaming number. Sometimes Microsoft will also release a new Xbox Game Pass figure, but they haven't done that for some time.

This is a big departure from Nintendo and Sony, both of which reveal revenue and profit numbers for their games businesses. Microsoft, however, has never discussed Xbox's profits. Now thanks to a series of documents and files that were accidentally leaked as part of the FTC v Microsoft federal trial, we have an idea of how healthy Xbox actually is.

When Apple announced the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models during that September 12 event, it mentioned that their new USB-C ports will be able to charge AirPods Pro and Apple Watches when the need arises. But what about other things?

It isn't immediately clear why Apple chose to mention the Apple Watch and AirPods Pro specifically, beyond those products also being updated at the same event, but the obvious question was whether anything else would charge when plugged into the USB-C port on those new iPhones. It made plenty of sense that they would, but we didn't see any confirmation from Apple either way. Now, we're starting to learn that yes, you can basically plug anything into that iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Pro in a pinch.

We know this after YouTuber MKBHD shared details of his testing of the new iPhones. That testing included plugging all kinds of things into the new models, including other iPhones and Android devices.

When Apple finally releases the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro on Friday, September 22, there are plenty of new features and capabilities for people to look forward to. But there's one new feature that Apple never mentioned during its event and we're only now learning about if after reviewers were allowed to start sharing information about their handsets earlier this week.

That feature is something that a lot of people are going to love, but others might find it more anxiety-inducing than it's worth. We're of course talking about a feature that will finally bring a battery cycle count to the iPhone, and it's sure to be something of a double-edged sword.

The news was shared by Ray Wong, a reviewer who posted the information to X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. The new battery cycle count is available in the Settings app alongside information about the manufacture date of the battery and when it was first used.

Leaked documents between a Microsoft head and a senior Nintendo employee have revealed Microsoft's intention to purchase Nintendo.

Emails between Phil Spencer, the Head of Xbox, Takeshi Numoto, Executive Vice President & Commercial Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, and Chris Capossela, EVP & Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, revealed a discussion about purchasing Nintendo, describing the company as the "THE prime asset for us in gaming". The email chains were leaked by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as a result of the Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft.

Not only were emails leaked, but internal documents revealed plans for future Xbox consoles, along with unannounced games and more secret details. The idea for Microsoft to merge with Nintendo is clearly well thought out, as Spencer outlines that the company's Board of Directors has seen a "full writeup" of the possible merger, and that Microsoft's board is "fully supportive" if the opportunity presents itself.

NASA has announced that the first asteroid sample collected in space by the agency will be arriving on Earth by the end of the week.

The space agency took to its website and social media channels to announce when it will begin its live coverage of the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx capsule, NASA's mission to collect a sample from the surface of an asteroid. The target was asteroid Bennu, and the collection process was successful as the sample was obtained from Bennu's surface in 2020.

Since then, the capsule has been on a return journey back to Earth, where it's expected it will touch down in the U.S. Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range on September 24, 2023. For this precise landing to be achieved, NASA explains that spacecraft operators will need to make sure that OSIRIS-REx enters the planet's atmosphere at a specific angle and speed.

Windows 11's Start menu remains one of the more controversial areas of the interface for the OS, and a fresh change in testing won't do anything to alter that perception.

Microsoft has applied some tweaks to the Recommended panel of the Start menu, one of which is potentially quite useful, and another, which, well, isn't.

The more positive change was spotted by regular leaker PhantomOfEarth on X (formerly Twitter), and is actually a hidden move you can see in the above tweet (only visible by using a Windows configuration utility, namely ViVeTool).

Bethesda has taken to its social channels to announce Starfield reaching a new player milestone that has made the company reach its own milestone.

Bethesda Games took to its X account to announce that Starfield has reached a staggering 10 million players across all platforms. This monumental achievement that took place just after two weeks of the title being out, as Bethesda released the highly anticipated title on September 19, with players that ordered the Premium Edition getting access on September 1. It was only after two days of being released Bethesda announced that more than 6 million people were playing the game.

The release of Starfield has gained it the title of the fastest-selling new IP of 2023, along with the biggest Xbox launch of this generation in Europe. At the moment its unclear what the split is in terms of platforms player count, and that is information we will likely never find as Microsoft stopped reporting its numbers quite some time ago.

A staggering 38 terabytes of data was accidentally leaked by Microsoft AI researchers on the website called GitHub, according to a cloud security company report.

The new report released by Wiz, a cloud security company, among the leaked files, were two entire backups of workstation computers that contained confidential Microsoft information such as company "secrets, private keys, passwords, and over 30,000 internal Microsoft Teams messages". The incredibly large data exposure may result in Microsoft's AI systems being vulnerable to attack or any other Microsoft-related systems. So, how did this happen?

Unfortunately, it was a simple yet critical mistake that occurred when Microsoft AI researchers were trying to publish a "bucket of open-source training material" and "AI models for image recognition" to GitHub. The files' SAS token was misspelled, resulting in the public's storage permissions switching to the entire storage account rather than the AI material that developers were attempting to publish. Unfortunately, the bad news doesn't stop there.

Elon Musk's brain chip company Neuralink is officially looking for its first human participants in an upcoming study, the first of its kind for the company.

The search for study participants follows an independent review board evaluation that granted the company approval to test its product on humans over the course of a six-year study. For those that don't know, Musk's brain-chip company is one of the handful of companies attempting to create a viable brain-computer interface (BCI), essentially a device that is the bridge between the human brain and computers. Musk has said previously that Neuralink will be able to solve medical afflictions in the body, while also connecting humans with artificial intelligence.

It was only last year that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied Neuralink's request to fast-track human trials. However, the regulator granted Neuralink an investigation device exemption (IDE), which enables the company to use a device for clinical studies, hence the call for human participants. As for who Neuralink is looking for, Elon Musk's brain-chip company is after patients with quadriplegia caused by a vertical spinal cord injury or ALS.

Nintendo Switch 2 rumors are swirling following the leak that developers were shown the next-generation console at Gamescom 2023, and now we are starting to hear more that back up previous predictions.

Rumors started after select developers were shown The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild running near 4K at 60FPS on the next-generation console. The rumors indicated the Nintendo Switch 2 will be adopting an NVIDIA SoC that will bolster an Ampere-based GPU that will enable DLSS and make the Nintendo Switch 2 a much more powerful console compared to Microsoft and Sony's consoles. Leaked emails between Activision and Nintendo backed these theories up, as they stated the performance of the next-generation Switch would be closer to the PS4 / Xbox One.

Now, RedGamingTech has acquired exclusive information about the Nintendo Switch 2 specifications, and according to the YouTuber, Nintendo's next console will feature an Ampere-Lovelace hybrid chip that will be able to reach near Xbox Series S speeds (when docked). This leap in performance can be attributed to NVIDIA's DLSS, and when enabled, the Nintendo Switch 2 will come within 15% of the Xbox Series X performance. As for handheld mode, the console is expected to have performance similar to an ASUS ROG Ally handheld.

Google has created a prototype AI-powered microscope that is designed to assist doctors in locating potentially cancerous cells and other pathogens.

The new type of microscope is called an "Augmented Reality Microscope" (ARM) and was birthed out of a relationship between Google and the Department of Defense. Reports indicate that the new microscope has heads-up-display (HUD) capabilities such as heatmaps, visual indicators, and object borders - all of which speed up the identification process conducted by doctors. Notably, the ARM microscope first came into the public eye in 2018 and has not been tested on patients with the purpose of diagnosis.

Google has designed 13 prototypes of the new device, and according to reports, substantial clinical studies still need to be conducted before ARM can be rolled out to potentially thousands of doctors. However, once the necessary studies have been completed and the results lead to a green light, ARM will be rolled out to hospitals and clinics. Google writes that ARM was designed with the intention of being able to attach to existing microscopes, or as Google describes it, "retrofitted".

The winners of the Royal Observatory Greenwich's 15th year of astronomy photography have been announced, and the images are nothing short of incredible.

The world's largest astrophotography contest consists of more than 4,000 separate submissions from 64 different countries, with each of the submissions going into a selection of different categories. The winners of 2023 were announced via a shortlist that was published in July, and now we able to see all of the notable submissions. The contest features 11 categories and below you will find winners for; Overall Winner, Auroras, Our Moon, Our Sun, and Stars & Nebulas.

The first image below is the winning photograph of 2023's astrophotography contest, and it showcases the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. The image titled "Andromed, unexpected" was snapped by an amateur astronomer team led by Marcel Drechsler, Xavier Strottner and Yann Sainty. Notably, the plasma streak on the left-hand side of the image was a unique discovery, with researchers now studying it as its believed it could be largest discovered streak of its kind.

When Apple released the iPhone 14 last year, the repair specialists at iFixit gave it a solid repairability score of seven out of 10, saying that it was recommended. That was a big deal for iPhones which normally fare pretty badly due to the way repairing them can often cost a lot of money or require removing multiple parts to get to relatively common ones that could need to be replaced. But iFixit now says that it has made a change to its score.

That new score is a rather poor four out of 10, with iFixit saying that the iPhone 14 is no longer recommended. Why? It turns out that the iPhone 14's repairability isn't quite as solid as it was once thought to be.

In a new blog post, iFixit says that when it gave the iPhone 14 such a good score last year people were surprised. Those within the repair industry have since reached out to say that actually fixing these devices isn't as easy as first thought, with official Apple parts often required and their costs being prohibitively high. What's more, some repair shops say that they are on the verge of collapse due to Apple's repair practices. Ships often use third-party parts or harvest them from other devices - something that Apple no longer makes possible.

Apple announced the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max during its September 12 event and the new models will finally go on sale on September 22. When they do they'll be the first phones with a 3nm chip installed, bringing improved performance to people who pick those handsets up. But it seems that Apple is already working on what comes next and one analyst believes that it might arrive sooner than you'd think.

This is all according to the supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who is normally pretty good at predicting things based on what suppliers tell him. In a larger Medium post Kuo says that TSMC is already working on what will be the next big upgrade to its chips, with Apple being one of the two companies that will benefit greatly from the move.

Kuo says that he expects that Apple and NVIDIA will be the two companies most likely to make use of TSMC's chips first. For Apple, Kup expects the iPhone to switch to new 2nm chips as soon as 2026 while Intel is set to do the same for its own next-generation AI chips.

Apple's iOS 17 update was announced during the WWDC event on June 5 and it's been in beta testing ever since that time. But despite various betas throughout the last couple of months, Apple made a change in the final version and it's causing a few people some problems.

That change might not seem like a huge one for some people, but for others, it seems to be causing some big problems. The change? Apple has done away with the familiar Tri-tone message alert sound, replacing it with a new Rebound one. And it appears that the new tone just isn't going to pass muster for some people. Perhaps this is why Apple should have made the change earlier in the beta cycle so that it could get some feedback - the kind of thing betas are actually for, of course.

The new tone change was made in the iOS 17 Release Candidate update that was made available a week before the update was rolled out to everyone who wanted it. Now that iOS 17 is available to the public there are more people than ever falling foul of the new tone, and boy are they complaining about it. Some say that the new tone simply isn't loud enough for them to hear it, while others lament the change in vibration pattern that the new tone has - making it harder to feel when in a pocket, for example.

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models are set to go on sale on September 22 and expectations are already pretty high for the new models thanks to some improvements across the board. And one of the interesting things to come out of the first round of early hands-ons and reviews is a new charging option that will be available on the new models.

As noted by The Verge's Alison Johnson, the new iPhones all have an additional battery charging option that will limit their charging to just 80%.

This new 80% limitation will of course prevent the iPhone in question from being charted beyond the 80% mark. Johnson does note that the option to have the iPhone charge to 100% as normal remains, as does the option to enable Optimized Battery Charging feature. That feature charges the iPhone to 80% and then waits at that point before it charges to 100% closer to the time that Apple believes you're likely to wake up or use your new iPhone next.

The Voice Memos app is one that comes preinstalled on all iPhones and Macs but is probably used by a relatively small proportion of the people who own those devices. But for those who do use it, the voice memos app can be vital. And now it's been given a huge new update that makes its recordings even more secure than they already were.

That's because Apple has enabled a new security feature in iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma. That feature will ensure that recordings stored in iCloud will have their titles automatically encrypted to keep them from prying eyes. In fact, Apple has shared a new support document that notes that devices that haven't been updated might only see the date and time that a note was created rather than any specific title that it was given.

Apple already encrypts the voice memos themselves meaning that even if someone was able to gain access to them, they wouldn't be able to hear what was on those recordings. They're encrypted in transit and then stored in an encrypted format, Apple's support document confirms.

It's something that's been in the works for a long time depending on who you listen to but it now sounds like WhatsApp is finally coming to the iPad. Not only that, but it's actually being tested ahead of what we have to imagine will be a global release in the semi-near future.

Using WhatsApp on the iPad has historically meant resorting to using the web app in Safari which, if we're all being honest with ourselves, sucks. The lack of an iPad app has long been a stain on WhatsApp's cross-platform credentials but it now seems that things are moving in the right direction following the news that the first iPad beta is now available to those who are on the WhatsApp TestFlight betas.

The news was first reported by the WhatsApp watchers over at WABetaInfo, with the new iPad app appearing as an option for those who are on the iOS beta.

Intel has lifted the lid on the first Core Ultra Meteor Lake chips, which will first hit the laptop market this December - and it's a major shake-up to the design, manufacturing, and capabilities found in Intel CPUs.

Meteor Lake and the new Core Ultra chip rebranding is more than a simple name change and codename for a new generation, as Intel has revamped almost everything about these CPUs, so much so that Intel states that Meteor Lake represents the largest client SoC architectural shift in 40 years.

The biggest upgrade comes with the underlying process technology, with the first generation of Core Ultra CPUs using the new 7nm Intel 4 process that will deliver 20% better performance per watt than the 10nm Intel 7 process. The other major advancement is Intel's new packaging technology called Foveros, which uses 3D stacking.