The Semantic Telemetry Project aims to better understand complex, turn-based human-AI interactions in Microsoft Copilot using a new data science approach.  This understanding is crucial for recognizing how individuals utilize AI systems to address real-world tasks. It provides actionable insights, enhances key use cases , and identifies opportunities for system improvement. In a recent blog post, we shared our approach for classifying chat log data using large language models (LLMs), which allows us to analyze these interactions at scale and in near real time. We also introduced two of our LLM-generated classifiers: Topics and Task Complexity.  This blog post will examine how our suite of LLM-generated classifiers can serve as early indicators for user engagement and highlight how usage and satisfaction varies based on AI and user expertise. The key findings from our research are:  When users engage in more professional, technical, and complex tasks, they are more likely to continue utilizing the tool and increase their level of interaction with it.  Novice users currently engage in simpler tasks, but their work is gradually becoming more complex over time.  More expert users are satisfied with AI responses only where AI expertise is on par with their own expertise on the topic, while novice users had low satisfaction rates regardless of AI expertise.  Read on for more information on these findings. Note that all analyses were conducted on anonymous Copilot in Bing interactions containing no personal information.  Classifiers mentioned in article:  Knowledge work classifier: Tasks that involve creating artifacts related to information work typically requiring creative and analytical thinking. Examples include strategic business planning, software design, and scientific research.  Task complexity classifier: Assesses the cognitive complexity of a task if a user performs it without the use of AI. We group into two categories: low complexity and high complexity.  Topics classifier: A single label for the primary topic of the conversation. User expertise: Labels the user’s expertise on the primary topic within the conversation as one of the following categories: Novice (no familiarity with the topic), Beginner (little prior knowledge or experience), Intermediate (some basic knowledge or familiarity with the topic), Proficient (can apply relevant concepts from conversation), and Expert (deep and comprehensive understanding of the topic).  AI expertise: Labels the AI agent expertise based on the same criteria as user expertise above.  User satisfaction: A 20-question satisfaction/dissatisfaction rubric that the LLM evaluates to create an aggregate score for overall user satisfaction.  What keeps Bing Chat users engaged?  We conducted a study of a random sample of 45,000 anonymous Bing Chat users during May 2024. The data was grouped into three cohorts based on user activity over the course of the month:  Light (1 active chat session per week)  Medium (2-3 active chat sessions per week)  Heavy (4+ active chat sessions per week)  The key finding is that heavy users are doing more professional, complex work.  We utilized our knowledge work classifier to label the chat log data as relating to knowledge work tasks. What we found is knowledge work tasks were higher in all cohorts, with the highest percentage in heavy users.  Figure 1: Knowledge work based on engagement cohort Analyzing task complexity, we observed that users with higher engagement frequently perform the highest number of tasks with high complexity, while users with lower engagement performed more tasks with low complexity.  Figure 2: High complexity and low complexity tasks by engagement cohort+  Looking at the overall data, we can filter on heavy users and see higher numbers of chats where the user was performing knowledge work tasks. Based on task complexity, we see that most knowledge work tasks seek to apply a solution to an existing problem, primarily within programming and scripting. This is in line with our top overall topic, technology, which we discussed in the previous post.  Figure 3: Heavy users tree diagram  In contrast, light users tended to do more low complexity tasks (“Remember”), using Bing Chat like a traditional search engine and engaging more in topics like business and finance and computers and electronics. Figure 4: Light users tree diagram  Novice queries are becoming more complex  We looked at Bing Chat data from January through August 2024 and we classified chats using our User Expertise classifier. When we looked at how the different user expertise groups were using the tool for professional tasks, we discovered that proficient and expert users tend to do more professional tasks with high complexity in topics like programming and scripting, professional writing and editing, and physics and chemistry.  Figure 5: Top topics for proficient/expert users  Figure 6: Task complexity for proficient/expert  Figure 7: Top topics for novices  In contrast, novice users engaged more in professional tasks relating to business and finance and education and learning, mainly using the tool to recall information. Figure 8: Task complexity for novices  However, novices are targeting increasingly more complex tasks over time. Over the eight-month period, we see the percentage of high complexity tasks rise from about 36% to 67%, revealing that novices are learning and adapting quickly (see Figure 9).  Figure 9: High complexity for novices Jan-Aug 2024  How does user satisfaction vary according to expertise?  We classified both the user expertise and AI agent expertise for anonymous interactions in Copilot in Bing. We compared the level of user and AI agent expertise with our user satisfaction classifier.  The key takeaways are:  Experts and proficient users are only satisfied with AI agents with similar expertise (expert/proficient).  Novices are least satisfied, regardless of the expertise of the AI agent.  Figure 10: Copilot in Bing satisfaction intersection of AI expertise and User expertise (August-September 2024)  Conclusion Understanding these metrics is vital for grasping user behavior over time and relating it to real-world business indicators. Users are finding value from complex professional knowledge work tasks, and novices are quickly adapting to the tool and finding these high value use-cases. By analyzing user satisfaction in conjunction with expertise levels, we can tailor our tools to better meet the needs of different user groups. Ultimately, these insights can help improve user understanding across a variety of tasks.   In our next post, we will examine the engineering processes involved in LLM-generated classification. Opens in a new tab

A burned section of a large ice age fireplace. CREDIT: Philip R. Nigst. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 To make it out of the last ice age alive, our ancestors needed a special set of skills. One of which was harnessing the power of fire. However, not many well-preserved fireplaces dating back to the coldest part of the ice age (between 26,500 and 19,000 years ago) remain in Europe.  Evidence from a prehistoric site at the shore of the Dnister river in modern-day Ukraine shows that people living during the most recent ice age built different types of hearths. Wood served as their primary source of fuel, but they may have used fat and bones as well. The findings were published April 1 in the journal Geoarchaeology. Archaeologists believe that Homo sapiens in Europe during the Upper Paleolithic period (between 45,000 and 10,000 years ago) used fire in several different ways.  “Fire was not just about keeping warm; it was also essential for cooking, making tools and for social gatherings,” Philip R. Nigst, a study co-author and archaeologist at the University of Vienna in Austria, said in a statement. Fire was likely a key part of survival for ice age hunter-gatherers in what is now Europe. Yet a lack of evidence from the coldest part of the ice age has prevented scientists from saying how.  “We know that fire was widespread before and after this period, but there is little evidence from the height of the Ice Age,” William Murphree, a study co-author and geoarchaeologist at the University of Algarve in Portugal, said in a statement. In the new study, the team analyzed three hearths unearthed at a prehistoric site in Ukraine. Through microstratigraphic analysis, micromorphology and colorimetric analysis, the scientists identified three simple, flat, wood-fired hearths. Interestingly, the analysis shows that one of these fires reached over 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius). According to the team, this proves that whoever made these fires had a more sophisticated mastery of pyrotechnics, despite the harsh environments they lived in.   The excavation site, located at the shore of the Dnister river in Ukraine. CREDIT: Philip R. Nigst Humans used wood as their main fuel source during the peak of the ice age. The charcoal analysis indicates that it was specifically spruce wood. However, animal bones or fat may have also been used to keep fires burning.  “Some of the animal bones found at the site were burnt in a fire with a temperature of over 650 degrees Celsius [1,202 degrees Fahrenheit]. We are currently investigating whether they were used as fuel or just accidentally burned,” study co-author and University of Vienna zooarcheologist Marjolein D. Bosch said in a statement.  All three fireplaces are open and flat. The team’s analysis suggests that their use of fire was sophisticated, because the fireplaces were likely to have been constructed and used differently depending on the season. One fireplace is larger and thicker, suggesting that it could reach higher temperatures. “People perfectly controlled the fire and knew how to use it in different ways, depending on the purpose of the fire. But our results also show that these hunter-gatherers used the same place at different times of the year during their annual migrations,” said Nigst. Even with these new findings, numerous questions remain, particularly about why there is such scant evidence of fireplaces dating back to the last ice age.  The large fireplace during the excavation. CREDIT: Philip R. Nigst. “Was most of the evidence destroyed by the ice-age-typical, alternating freezing and thawing of the soil?” asks Murphree.  “Or did people not find enough fuel during the Last Glacial Maximum? Did they not use fire, but instead relied on other technological solutions?” adds Nigst.  The team hopes that understanding more about the role fire plays in human evolution will reveal how it helped our species become dominant. 

News Science & Society Federal cuts put help for mental health and drug addiction in peril Changes to SAMHSA are hitting during an opioid epidemic and a wave of mental health problems The federal agency that helps oversee the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline has undergone an extreme reorganization under the Trump administration. Since its launch in 2022, millions of texts, calls and chats have poured into the Lifeline as people in distress look for help. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images By Laura Sanders 5 seconds ago People in the United States are in the midst of an ongoing opioid epidemic and a wave of mental health problems. So funding and staff cuts to a federal agency that supports mental health care, suicide prevention, and addiction treatment, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, has worried people who work on substance use disorders and mental health. “We’ve got some challenges — big ones,” says Keith Humphreys, a psychologist at Stanford University. He has served on the SAMHSA National Advisory Council and as a senior policy adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. “It seems like a bad time for the government to say, ‘Well, we’re not doing this anymore.’” Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Nature, Published online: 14 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01146-4US global dominance in science was no accident, but a product of a far-seeing partnership between public and private sectors to boost innovation and economic growth.

Just one of those sudden motivation render. submitted by /u/lolororogiri [link] [comments]

RT Miettinen Jesse - Blenderesse#geometrynodes rope physics test. Gets little bouncy when too many collisions, but otherwise pretty solid. #b3d

Apple took the top spot for global smartphone sales in the first quarter on the back of the iPhone 16e's launch and strong demand in countries such as Japan and India, data from Counterpoint Research showed on Monday.Apple had 19 percent of the smartphone market, despite flat or declining sales in the US, Europe and China, followed by Samsung with 18 percent of the market, according to Counterpoint.The International Data Corporation, which tracks mobile phone shipments, said global shipments rose 1.5 percent in the first quarter, with Apple rushing to stockpile units to avoid tariffs imposed by US president Donald Trump.Trump's back-and-forth tariffs and escalation of global trade tensions has resulted in global financial market turmoil for the past two weeks, a worsening economic outlook and the possibility of stronger inflation.Apple had chartered cargo flights to ferry 600 tons of iPhones, or as many as 1.5 million, to the United States from India in an effort to beat the tariffs.However, Trump's decision to exclude smartphones, computers and some other electronics from the sweeping reciprocal duties on China led to a rise in global tech shares on Monday."The recent exemption by the US government pausing smartphone import tariffs from China offers temporary relief for US companies, but heavy reliance on China's supply chain persists amid ongoing tariff volatility," said Ryan Reith, group vice president, worldwide device trackers, IDC."Right now, the focus for US smartphone brands should be taking advantage of the exemption by building and shipping as much as possible."Counterpoint, which expects the smartphone market to decline this year due to tariff-related uncertainty, said Xiaomi continued its sales momentum in third place, while Vivo took the fourth spot and OPPO was fifth.© Thomson Reuters 2025(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Further reading: Apple, iPhone, Smartphones, Samsung Related Stories

Your Guide to Profit in EducationDiscover How Easy It Is to Earn From eLearningUnlocking Passive Income in the Digital Learning World3 min read·Just now--Photo by Thomas Park on UnsplashThe eLearning market is booming, and for good reason. With a staggering value of over $399 billion and projections to reach $1 trillion, the opportunities for making money in this space are endless. Imagine earning passive income just by using your knowledge to create and share educational content. Unlike traditional teaching methods or business models, the eLearning industry allows you to reach millions of learners worldwide, offering a unique way to leverage your skills and interests.Start Earning with the eLearning RevolutionHave you ever wanted to turn your expertise into a source of income? The demand for educational content is at an all-time high, driven by over 300 million learners actively looking for study aids, certifications, and learning resources. By tapping into the eLearning market, you can create valuable materials — like study guides and online courses — that can generate substantial earnings.How to Tap into the $399 Billion eLearning Market for Easy Passive Income is your guide to making this vision a reality. Leveraging the global excitement around education can work wonders for your financial health.Creating educational content no longer requires extensive knowledge or writing skills. Thanks to AI-powered content creation, anyone can launch a successful eLearning project with minimal effort. You can generate high-quality educational materials in just a few clicks! This means less time spent on content creation and more focus on promoting your educational resources.Capitalize on Growing Demand for Study GuidesWhether it’s high school exams, real estate certifications, or nursing degrees, the desire for study aids is ever-growing. These materials help students grasp key concepts, offering summaries, practice exercises, and tips — all essential resources that learners need. The versatility of study guides caters to various subjects and levels, ensuring they remain a sought-after commodity.Beyond just creating guides, there are platforms like Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) that provide an easy way to publish and sell your educational material. With a global reach, Amazon holds nearly 70% of the eBook market, meaning your study guides could potentially reach a vast audience. If your material resonates with buyers, you could see earnings of $200 or more from your first sales alone!The beauty of this digital age is that publishing is not limited to one platform. You can also distribute resources on places like Draft2Digital and Etsy, each offering fantastic exposure for your study materials. By leveraging multiple channels, your potential revenue could skyrocket.Moreover, the nature of passive income can be incredibly rewarding. By investing some time now to create compelling educational content, you can take advantage of ongoing sales without continuous effort. As people constantly seek learning materials, there’s a good chance your study guides will sell for years to come.Turn Passion Into Profit: Creating educational content can be both fulfilling and financially rewarding.Reach a Worldwide Audience: Engage with learners and professionals globally who are in need of study aids.Minimal Effort Needed: With automation and AI tools, the workload is significantly reduced.Multiple Income Streams: Publish on various platforms to maximize visibility and royalties.Many individuals like John have seen first-hand success with this model. In his first two weeks of launching his study materials, he earned $500 with just a few well-placed marketing strategies. Similarly, Jane made an incredible $2,000 in her first month by offering courses on popular certification topics. These stories show that it’s not only possible, but many have successfully made the leap into this exciting world.Imagine waking up each day knowing that your knowledge is not only valuable but can also generate a side income. The possibilities are endless when you take that first step to enter into the eLearning space.If you’re interested in exploring this lucrative market further, check out How to Tap into the $399 Billion eLearning Market for Easy Passive Income and unlock your potential in this growing industry.As you consider how you might contribute to the eLearning boom, remember that the journey to financial freedom does not require perfection — just the courage to begin.Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for more articles. Follow for updates!

News Assassin’s Creed Shadows Has Topped US Sales Charts for 3 Straight Weeks After Launch The open-world action RPG is currently the second best-selling game year-to-date, just behind Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds. Posted By Ravi Sinha | On 14th, Apr. 2025 Ubisoft’s long-awaited Assassin’s Creed Shadows hasn’t approached the highs of its predecessor, Valhalla, but it’s still quite successful, especially in the United States. Circana revealed that it was the best-selling game in the region for its launch week. However, Circana analyst and executive director Mat Piscatella revealed on BlueSky that it topped charts for each of its first three weeks. Furthermore, it’s ranked second in year-to-date dollar sales behind Monster Hunter Wilds. The data is based on dollar sales through April 5th, so it should be interesting to see if Shadows can continue the streak. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. Ubisoft announced over three million players roughly eight days after release and the second-highest day-one sales revenue for the franchise. Of course, this is only the start with a 10+ hour expansion, Claws of Awaji, out this year. The development team is also “actively looking” at more challenging difficulty options. Tagged With: Atomfall Publisher:Rebellion Developments Developer:Rebellion Developments Platforms:PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, Xbox One, PCView More Monster Hunter Wilds Publisher:Capcom Developer:Capcom Platforms:PS5, Xbox Series X, PCView More South of Midnight Publisher:Microsoft Developer:Compulsion Games Platforms:Xbox Series X, PCView More Amazing Articles You Might Want To Check Out! Marathon Director Says “Everyone Has Their Definition of What is the Right Price” Joe Ziegler says the team is "committing" to making the game "really awesome," and the starting point is curre... Assassin’s Creed Shadows Has Topped US Sales Charts for 3 Straight Weeks After Launch The open-world action RPG is currently the second best-selling game year-to-date, just behind Capcom's Monster... Star Wars Zero Company Announced by Respawn Entertainment and Bit Reactor Announced in 2022, the single-player turn-based tactics game features a Mandalorian, Clone Trooper, and Jedi a... Indiana Jones and the Great Circle PS5 Graphical Analysis – An Outstanding Port Excellent performance and stellar production values result in a resplendent action-adventure that Indy would b... S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl Q2 Roadmap Includes Mutant Loot, New Weapons, and A-Life 2.0 Updates A-Life 2.0 will see several upgrades, including smarter human combat, Mutants reacting to threats and eating c... JDM: Japanese Drift Master Gets New Trailer Showcasing Tuning and Customisation JDM: Japanese Drift Master will allow players plenty of customisation options, including the angles at which t... View More