Monkey see, Monkey do AI firms follow DeepSeeks lead, create cheaper models with distillation Technique uses a "teacher" LLM to train smaller AI systems. Cristina Criddle and Melissa Heikkil, Financial Times Mar 3, 2025 9:36 am | 0 The technique caught attention after DeepSeek used it to build AI models based on open source systems released by competitors Meta and Alibaba Credit: FT montage/Getty The technique caught attention after DeepSeek used it to build AI models based on open source systems released by competitors Meta and Alibaba Credit: FT montage/Getty Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreLeading artificial intelligence firms including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta are turning to a process called distillation in the global race to create AI models that are cheaper for consumers and businesses to adopt.The technique caught widespread attention after Chinas DeepSeek used it to build powerful and efficient AI models based on open-source systems released by competitors Meta and Alibaba. The breakthrough rocked confidence in Silicon Valleys AI leadership, leading Wall Street investors to wipe billions of dollars of value from US Big Tech stocks.Through distillation, companies take a large language modeldubbed a teacher modelwhich generates the next likely word in a sentence. The teacher model generates data which then trains a smaller student model, helping to quickly transfer knowledge and predictions of the bigger model to the smaller one.While distillation has been widely used for years, recent advances have led industry experts to believe the process will increasingly be a boon for start-ups seeking cost-effective ways to build applications based on the technology.Distillation is quite magical, said Olivier Godement, head of product for OpenAIs platform. Its the process of essentially taking a very large smart frontier model and using that model to teach a smaller model...very capable in specific tasks that is super cheap and super fast to execute.Large language models such as OpenAIs GPT-4, Googles Gemini and Metas Llama require massive amounts of data and computing power to develop and maintain. While the companies have not revealed precise figures for how much it costs to train large models, it is likely to be hundreds of millions of dollars.Thanks to distillation, developers, and businesses can access these models capabilities at a fraction of the price, allowing app developers to run AI models quickly on devices such as laptops and smartphones.Developers can use OpenAIs platform for distillation, learning from the large language models that underpin products like ChatGPT. OpenAIs largest backer, Microsoft, used GPT-4 to distill its small language family of models Phi as part of a commercial partnership after investing nearly $14 billion into the company.However, the San Francisco-based start-up has said it believes DeepSeek distilled OpenAIs models to train its competitor, a move that would be against its terms of service. DeepSeek has not commented on the claims.While distillation can be used to create high-performing models, experts add they are more limited.Distillation presents an interesting trade-off; if you make the models smaller, you inevitably reduce their capability, said Ahmed Awadallah of Microsoft Research, who said a distilled model can be designed to be very good at summarising emails, for example, but it really would not be good at anything else.David Cox, vice-president for AI models at IBM Research, said most businesses do not need a massive model to run their products, and distilled ones are powerful enough for purposes such as customer service chatbots or running on smaller devices like phones.Any time you can [make it less expensive] and it gives you the right performance you want, there is very little reason not to do it, he added.That presents a challenge to many of the business models of leading AI firms. Even if developers use distilled models from companies like OpenAI, they cost far less to run, are less expensive to create, and, therefore, generate less revenue. Model-makers like OpenAI often charge less for the use of distilled models as they require less computational load.Yet, OpenAIs Godement argued that large language models will still be required for high intelligence and high stakes tasks where businesses are willing to pay more for a high level of accuracy and reliability. He added that large models will also be needed to discover new capabilities that can then be distilled into smaller ones.Still, the company aims to prevent its large models from being distilled to train a competitor. OpenAI has teams monitoring usage and can remove access to users it suspects are generating vast amounts of data to export and train a rival, as it has apparently done with accounts it believes were linked to DeepSeek. Yet much of this action happens retroactively.OpenAI has been trying to protect against distillation for a long time, but it is very hard to avoid it altogether, said Douwe Kiela, chief executive of Contextual AI, a start-up building information retrieval tools for enterprises.Distillation is also a victory for advocates of open models, where the technology is made freely available for developers to build upon. DeepSeek has made its recent models also open for developers.Were going to use [distillation] and put it in our products right away, said Yann LeCun, Metas chief AI scientist. Thats the whole idea of open source. You profit from everyone and everyone elses progress as long as those processes are open.Distillation also means that model-makers can spend billions of dollars to advance the capabilities of AI systems but still face competitors that often catch up quickly, as DeepSeeks recent releases demonstrate. This raises questions about the first-mover advantage in building LLMs when their capabilities can be replicated in a matter of months.In a world where things are moving so fast...you could actually spend a lot of money, doing it the hard way, and then the rest of the field is right on your heels, IBMs Cox said. So it is an interesting and tricky business landscape.Additional reporting by Michael Acton in San Francisco. 2025 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.Cristina Criddle and Melissa Heikkil, Financial TimesCristina Criddle and Melissa Heikkil, Financial Times 0 Comments

Seeking adults in the room Its not actually you: Teens cope while adults debate harms of fake nudes Most kids know that deepfake nudes are harmful, Thorn survey says. Ashley Belanger Mar 3, 2025 9:16 am | 4 Credit: Maskot | Maskot Credit: Maskot | Maskot Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreTeens increasingly traumatized by deepfake nudes clearly understand that the AI-generated images are harmful.And apparently so do many of their tormentors, who typically use free or cheap "nudify" apps or web tools to "undress" innocuous pics of victims, then pass the fake nudes around school or to people they know online. A surprising recent Thorn survey suggests there's growing consensus among young people under 20 that making and sharing fake nudes is obviously abusive.That's a little bit of "good news" on the deepfake nudes front, Thorn's director of research, Melissa Stroebel, told Ars. Last year, The New York Times declared that teens are now confronting an "epidemic" of fake nudes in middle and high schools that are completely unprepared to support or in some cases even acknowledge victims.At least one 2023 survey found that deepfake pornography has already become normalized adult entertainment, with 74 percent of 1,522 US male deepfake porn users reporting they "don't feel guilty" about viewing it. And so far, adults disagreeing on the social norms around deepfake porn has stewed chaos in schools. In Pennsylvania, parents even sought to prosecute a head of a private school that had to shut down after the administrator allegedly for months ignored reports of a single student creating fake nudes that over time targeted nearly 50 female students.But as their friends and classmates are harmed, many teens are apparently starting to understand that using AI to generate non-consensual nudes is not OK.On Monday, Thorn shared results of a survey of 1,200 young people ages 1320 that found that 84 percent of young people "overwhelmingly recognize" deepfake nudes as abuse that harms the victim depicted.Stroebel told Ars that for young people, making deepfake nudes is not yet normalized. But Thorn's survey, which found that 10 percent of surveyed young people personally know a victim, suggests that "more likely than not, it is happening in almost every school system around the country," and likely "every town has had at least one person targeted in some way, shape or form," she suggested."Even if it is one person creating it, one person targeted, the likelihood is that it is spreading throughout the community," Stroebel told Ars, suggesting that such non-consensual sharing "is exponentially increasing the number of kids impacted and the scale of the harm to the child depicted."Roberta Duffield, the director of intelligence for Blackbird.AIwhich makes deepfake detection toolstold Ars that currently, "deepfake nudes targeting kids (and adults) represent one of the most insidious and wide-reaching harms of AI."And especially for young people "still forming their identities," the "psychological, reputational, and social consequences can be severe and long-lasting," Duffield said. She agreed with Stroebel that a multi-pronged approach to the problem is urgently needed, not just involving schools and parents, but also lawmakers and tech companies."Protecting kids from AI-generated sexual material should be at the forefront of content moderation policies of social media platforms and in the legislative offices of policymakers," Duffield said.I was horny: How teens justify making fake nudesSince nudify apps became more mainstream, the majority of victims have been female, but young men have been targeted, too, Thorn found, calling for more research into all young people's experiences. That trend perhaps helped push overarching sentiment, at least among young people, away from defending the sexual abuse as a mere joke. Stroebel was surprised to find that most young survey respondents didn't think the joke was funny anymore."Everyone will see it, they will be embarrassed, and it will never go away," a 13-year-old male respondent said. Another male respondent, 18 years old, seemed to understand the complexity even better, explaining that "it dehumanizes the person, as you use them for pleasure without consent.""It really is both surprising and really hopeful to me that the kids have clarity on this subject," Stroebel told Ars, especially compared to the 2023 survey results finding that many adult men don't think there's anything wrong with fake nudes.Stroebel told Ars that because young people are digital natives, they are more likely to become early adopters of emerging technologies like nudify apps; unfortunately, they also happen to be in a time of their lives when they're likely to engage in riskier behaviors. Motivations for creating deepfake nudes included "sexual curiosity, pleasure-seeking, revenge," and peer pressure, Thorn found.One 14-year-old boy claimed he created deepfake nudes to strike back at a bully.A year older, another teen boy said he just wanted to "see what it would look like.""I was dared to," an 18-year-old female respondent admitted, while an 18-year-old man confessed, "I was horny" and "WASNT thinking straight."Only 9 percent of respondents disputed harms, rationalizing decisions to create, view, or share AI nudes by claiming that nobody is harmed. Most denying harms insisted that the images can't cause real harm because they're fake, while others suggested that victims aren't physically hurt or downplayed the gravity of emotional pain inflicted."As soon as everyone knows its a deepfake, all feelings of panic and fear are gone," a 16-year-old female respondent opined. "Its not actually you, so theres no pressure. Its a little stressful, but its not actually their body."A 13-year-old male respondent agreed it was unethical but ultimately not harmful, saying, "you control what offends you. Of course, its wrong to make deepfake nudes, but ultimately its fake."Thorn suspects that young people's experiences with deepfake nudes are underreported, partly because victims may be too ashamed or traumatized to report them and partly because they may have no idea the fake nudes exist. About 27 percent of respondents told Thorn that they created fake nudes for personal consumption and never shared them.However, most young people who create fake nudes share them (65 percent), Thorn found. And they're about as likely (30 percent) to share them with other kids at school as with online-only contacts (29 percent). Duffield told Ars this urge to share is why education campaigns are needed to "help folks question content before sharing."Fake nudes risk becoming normalized for teensThorn's survey shows that teens have more nuanced thoughts on deepfake nudes than some experts might expect. And news reports tracking scandals rocking schools show that society's attitude about fake nudes matters to teens, who are more likely to seek help combating harms from fake nudes (76 percent) than they are coping with other forms of online sexual interactions (46 percent), Thorn found.Most young people surveyed use online tools like blocking or reporting when confronting deepfake nudes. But more than half (57 percent) sought help offline, Thorn said, most often turning to a parent, school authority, friends, or police. To ensure that young people keep reaching out for help, more support resources are needed, Thorn's survey said, including helplines and legal aid.Additionally, every school in the country urgently needs to draft an explicit policy making it clear to parents and students how the school responds when a deepfake nudes scandal hits, Stroebel told Ars. That should include crisis response plans, Duffield said."Educators could establish standardized guidelines for handling deepfake incidents, provide resources for educators and parents, and collaborate with law enforcement to address legal challenges," Duffield said.Thorn also recommends more research into how young people use blocking and reporting to combat threats online.Stroebel told Ars that she wants to better understand why kids choose to block versus report in certain circumstances. She's worried that kids overwhelmingly choose to block users sharing fake nudes, rather than reporting the attack and prompting a broader platform response that could help minimize harm to more users. It's also concerning, she said, to think that particularly young users who feel imminently in danger may wrongly expect that reporting a fake nude triggers immediate action.Other changes tech companies could consider include prioritizing stronger deepfake detection, Duffield recommended.Perhaps most urgently, Stroebel told Ars that institutional support is needed to stop fake nudes from becoming a normal part of the teenage experience.Right now, she said that kids want to know how to protect themselves and their friends, and, in this moment, there just isn't a clear message that making fake nudes carries serious consequences. Even schools where scandals have hit don't seem to publicly share their plans to support kids once the backlash dissipates, potentially leaving open a debate over what's right and wrong that Stroebel said leaves young people in harm's way the longer it goes unsettled."There is not a uniform institutional response, whether we are talking about at the policy level, at the family unit level, at the school level, and normalization ultimately ends up existing when it is widely accepted and it is anticipated," Stroebel said. "If there isn't an institutional response for too long" explicitly clarifying "that this is harmful behavior, then it becomes [about] individual opinion on if this is harmful or not," Stroebel said.That risks leaving today's absent standard as the status quo and keeping "the control in hands of the person making a choice of whether or not they're going to create non-consensual abuse imagery," Stroebel said.Many teens told Thorn that they're already acknowledging the abuse and already asking for help. As a 15-year-old girl explained to Thorn, "even though its not real," victims currently "have no way to prove that, and they cant just deny it, because their face is most likely on it."Ashley BelangerSenior Policy ReporterAshley BelangerSenior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 4 Comments

There may be a new era of DeFi in the offing if regulation eases up, and stakeholders in this sector see new potential understandings with watchdogs.

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How DeepSeek became a fortune teller for Chinas youth As DeepSeek has emerged as a homegrown challenger to OpenAI, young people across the country have started using AI to revive fortune-telling practices that have deep roots in Chinese culture. Across Chinese social media, users are sharing AI-generated readings, experimenting with fortune-telling prompt engineering, and revisiting ancient spiritual textsall with the help of DeepSeek.The surge in AI fortune-telling comes during a time of pervasive anxiety and pessimism in Chinese society. And as spiritual practices remain hidden underground thanks to the countrys regime, computers and phone screens are helping younger people to gain a sense of control over their lives. Read the full story.Caiwen Chen Are you interested in learning more about DeepSeek? Read our stories: + How DeepSeek overcame US sanctions and managed to turn restrictions into innovation. Read the full story. + How DeepSeek ripped up the AI playbookand why everyones going to follow its lead. The Chinese firm has pulled back the curtain to expose how the top labs may be building their next-generation models. Now things get interesting. + DeepSeek might not be such good news for energy after all. New figures show that if the models energy-intensive chain of thought reasoning gets added to everything, the promise of efficiency gets murky. Read the full story.+ Three things to know as the dust settles from DeepSeekand four other Chinese AI startups to keep an eye on. The must-reads Ive combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 A private lander has touched down on the moon US startup Firefly is the second private company to land on lunar soil. (The Guardian)+ The mission is part of NASAs plans to lower costs via private enterprises. (NYT $)+ Nokia is putting the first cellular network on the moon. (MIT Technology Review)2 Donald Trump may create Americas first strategic crypto reserve Crypto champions believe it could finally lend the industry a sense of legitimacy. (CoinDesk)+ But some Republican lawmakers worry it could put taxpayer funds at risk. (FT $)+ Other crypto investors are pushing for the reserve to hold only bitcoin. (CNBC)+ Meanwhile, Elon Musk is throwing his weight behind Dogecoin. (Ars Technica)3 AI firms are racing to create cheaper models And theyre pinning their hopes on a process called distillation to do just that. (FT $)+ How DeepSeek ripped up the AI playbookand why everyones going to follow its lead. (MIT Technology Review)4 Amazon has lost its bid to escape regulatory oversight Its been denied permission to skip permitting rules for a proposed data center. (WP $)5 The US federal layoffs are bad news for aquatic ecosystems Firing wildlife workers could lead to an outbreak of parasitic lampreys, which wreak havoc on freshwater fish. (Ars Technica)+ Its just one of the many cuts that could make life in the US worse. (The Atlantic $)6 Smart cameras can detect wildfires before they spreadTheyre also adept at spotting blazes overnight. (WSJ $) + How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)7 Beware the creep of AI chatbots aimed at kidsThey cant be relied upon to always dispense correct information. (Insider $) + Some parents are teaching children how to use models safely. (The Guardian)+ You need to talk to your kid about AI. Here are 6 things you should say. (MIT Technology Review) 8 RIP Skype Microsoft is shutting it down in favor of Teams. (CNN)+ Youve got until May to decide what to do with your data. (The Register)9 This artificial tongue could allow you to taste flavors in VR Yum, tasty hydrogels. (New Scientist $)+ The device helped volunteers taste coffee, fried eggs, and fish soup. (NYT $)10 How social media drove a Japanese matcha shortage The tasty green drink is a TikTok sensation. (Bloomberg $)Quote of the day This is the real, actual revenge of the nerds. Hasan Piker, an online political commentator, reflects on how DOGE feels like the culmination of Elon Musks eternally-online existence, the New York Times reports. The big story These artificial snowdrifts protect seal pups from climate change April 2024 For millennia, during Finlands blistering winters, wind drove snow into meters-high snowbanks along Lake Saimaas shoreline, offering prime real estate from which seals carved cave-like dens to shelter from the elements and raise newborns.But in recent decades, these snowdrifts have failed to form in sufficient numbers, as climate change has brought warming temperatures and rain in place of snow, decimating the seal population.For the last 11 years, humans have stepped in to construct what nature can no longer reliably provide. Human-made snowdrifts, built using handheld snowplows, now house 90% of seal pups. They are the latest in a raft of measures that have brought Saimaas seals back from the brink of extinction. Read the full story.Matthew Ponsford We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + This behind the scenes look at how they created the podracing scenes in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is remarkably cool.+ Has Shrek had botox? Much to think about.+ The largest live game of Dungeons and Dragons ever played looks incredible ($)+ Five years ago in the UK, we collectively lost our minds.

This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.Welcome back! If you're feeling some kind of way about heading back to work, maybe hold off on that social media post. As much fun as it can be to vent, an ex-VP of HR at Microsoft said it's a fine line.In today's newsletter, four massive firms are dominating the hedge fund industry and leaving everyone else to figure out where they fit in.What's on deckMarkets: Hudson River Trading had a record year in 2024. Here's what went so well for the trading giant.Tech: Hulu's livestream of the Oscars went dark during critical moments of the awards ceremony.Business: Starbucks' CEO is six months on the job. How is he doing? (And what does it mean for your morning coffee?)But first, don't even try to compete.If this was forwarded to you, The big storyThe new big four Richard Darko/Getty, skodonnell/Getty, angel_nt/Getty, Klaus Vedfelt/Getty, Tyler Le/BI In the world of hedge funds, there are four big names and then everyone else.Millennium, Citadel, Point72, and Balyasny have surpassed their peers by so much it's reshaping the entire industry, writes Business Insider's Bradley Saacks.The fundraising ability, talent recruitment, and strong performance of those four multistrategy funds have made it almost impossible for up-and-comers to break in.The concentration at the top has several knock-on effects.For one, it makes an already competitive (and expensive) market for hiring even harder. One estimate last July of 18,600 people across 53 multistrategy firms found more than 71% worked for one of the big four.And if you can't attract the best talent, you might have a tougher time raising money from allocators, who are already keeping things close to the vest due to high interest rates.Those two factors make setting up your own fund a lot more intimidating than it used to be.Even investors with the highest pedigrees former Millennium executive Bobby Jain have faced challenges going out on their own. And besides, the days of a high-profile investor running a fund that attracts billions of dollars in investments are long gone.At the same time, one allocator told Bradley that Steve Cohen's Point72 has a $9 billion waitlist, which is larger than most firms' total capital.As one person building a multi-strat fund put it to Bradley: "If you're going to compete with Citadel and Millennium in their own backyard, you're already dead." Tyler Le/Insider The end result could mean less competition, as investors might just stay with the biggest dogs on the block.Funds looking to stay afloat might try to think outside the box, lest they compete directly with one of the giants. That could mean catering to specific regions or focusing on more niche investments the big players wouldn't bother with.Still, the rise of the big four could be an opportunity for smaller players. With firms like Millennium and Citadel looking more like big banks, being nimble could be an asset.Specifically, using AI to help streamline work that a high-priced human might typically do could narrow the gap (and improve their margins).News briefAs Europe mobilizes behind Ukraine, it's sitting on a $218 billion ace card and it's being urged to play it.'Crypto Capital of the World': Trump selects cryptocurrencies for new strategic reserve.Citi's latest blunder: an $81 trillion 'inputting error.' (That's not a typo.)Millennials have a terrifying new job: being full-time adults.Here's what Trump's cabinet picks have in their investment portfolios from bitcoin and Big Tech to index funds.Americans are afraid to fly after recent crashes social media and DOGE aren't helping.The best-dressed celebrities on the 2025 Oscars red carpet.'SNL' mocks Trump-Zelenskyy White House meeting, interrupted by a chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk.Jeff Bezos' Washington Post moves might please Trump but they're costing him money.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the DoD's civilian federal workforce must respond to DOGE's productivity emails.3 things in markets Courtesy of Zach Kleinwaks; Courtesy of Kevin Xu; Getty Images; BI 1. Goodbye, WallStreetBets. Hello, investing influencers. With Roaring Kitty's rise in the rearview, there's a new set of retail-investing influencers guiding thousands of followers. Three told BI their strategies, explained why they left the WallStreetBets subreddit, and shared some personal Hall of Fame trades.2. HRT's monster 2024. Hudson River Trading's net trading revenue hit nearly $8 billion last year, an all-time high, according to people familiar with the matter. Roughly half of HRT's trading profits still come from its high-frequency trading business. But the firm is also expanding into more hedge-fund-style trading strategies that require more capital and come with greater risks.3. The US economy's big bogeyman: stagflation. Fears of higher inflation and slow economic growth are creeping back into the picture. Kansas City Fed president Jeff Schmid and Apollo chief economist Torsten Slk both issued warnings in remarks last week.3 things in tech Kate Sieler and Sam Martin quit their jobs to launch a new dating app called Left Field. Courtesy of Left Field 1. This dating app wants to be like Pokmon Go for finding love. Left Field launched for New York daters last week, and it's the latest startup aiming to mitigate swiping fatigue. The app wants to introduce a more passive way to date. Instead of swiping, Left Field sends push notifications of a potential match in the area if a user has location services on and crosses paths with another profile.2. Inside the exclusive LA tech conference where VCs, royals, and legendary athletes mingle. The Upfront Summit is an annual invite-only event that aspires to be #not-like-the-other-tech-conferences. This year, Prince Harry, Serena Williams, and Kamala Harris were all in attendance, and AI excitement and unease was a dominant theme.3. Hulu crashed during the livestream of the Oscars. On Sunday, some fans were left disappointed and unable to follow along in real time for some of the biggest awards of the night. It was the first time the platform has streamed the awards live.3 things in business Pablo Delcan for BI 1. The secret of business success. A study of 50 million American companies tried to crack the code, finding the amount of financing and its source are key indicators. But venture capital's mostly white, mostly male bias led BI's Adam Rogers to this succinct conclusion: "Be a tech bro who gets money from other tech bros." The study also gives clues about a more interesting question why today's startup culture looks so different from before.2. Meet DOGE's acting administrator. Amy Gleason's career has combined interests in nursing and technology. One former colleague described her as "superhuman" when it comes to work, adding that she earned the nickname "the green dot" for being on the work messaging system late into the night and then early in the morning. The ex-colleague also described her as apolitical and unflappable and predicted she would "crush it" in her new role.3. Checking in on Brian Niccol's 'Back to Starbucks' plan. Since September, the new CEO has been focused on rebranding the coffee chain to win back its customer base. Niccol's goal is to turn Starbucks into a cozy local coffeehouse customers can hang out in and he's instituted several changes to do so. It's still early, but marketing and retail experts think Niccol is moving in the right direction.In other newsForget cancel culture. America's real problem is cancellation culture.The 2025 Oscars worst-dressed list: 12 looks that missed the mark sorry.There's a streaming alliance that beats Netflix on one key metric.Who's left at OpenAI?The art of no deal: Negotiation experts dissect Trump and Zelenskyy's Oval Office clash.How cheaper mortgages gave us the baby boomers and what it means for today's baby bust.A key part of the bitcoin bull case has lost steam. What to know about efforts to start a bitcoin reserve.How much Netflix pays employees in jobs ranging from content roles to engineers, according to salary data.Photos show the biggest moments at the 2025 Oscars.What's happening todayParis fashion week begins.The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.

I lived in Banff, Canada, throughout my 20s. I loved the North American town and would move back.The people I encountered were so kind, and I loved experiencing the changing seasons.Banff had beautiful wildlife, and Canada had great cuisine that I still think about. When I was 25, my friend asked me if I wanted to move to Banff, Canada. Without giving it much thought, I jumped at the opportunity.Within a few months, I quit my job at a daily newspaper in Australia, sold most of my worldly possessions, and boarded an airplane for Calgary, Alberta. My friend had lined us up with an agency that sorted out all the visa paperwork and organized a job in Banff, so it was a really smooth transition.I'll never forget sitting on a bus driving from Calgary to Banff and seeing the Rockies for the first time. That was the start of one of the most magical periods of my life.There's nothing like watching the changing seasons hit beaches and mountains Banff looks incredible throughout winter, spring, summer, and fall. Ben Girardi/Getty Images/Cavan Images RF One of the many things about Canada I first fell in love with was its changing seasons. Coming from the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, I had never really experienced proper seasons before. The Gold Coast typically averages about 300 days of sunny weather a year.When we arrived in Banff, it was fall. There was something so striking about the golden and orange hues of the autumn leaves set against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains.As the days grew shorter and colder, Banff became a winter wonderland. The first time my friend and I saw snow falling, we ran outside, laughing and dancing in the snow like two little girls. For someone who'd grown up on a beach in a sub-tropical climate, that was pretty special.Experiencing holidays North American-style was a blastAs Halloween approached, I realized what else I'd been missing in Australia.When I was a child, we would go trick-or-treating in our street, but none of the houses would be decorated and we'd be lucky to come across a neighbor who actually had candy to share.In contrast, Halloween was incredible in Banff. There were costume parties, bonfires in the park, jack-o'-lanterns on people's lawns, and spooky decorations adorning most buildings.For Thanksgiving, my Canadian friends made me a traditional Canadian pumpkin pie something I'd never tried before. Throughout the season, locals showed me that North American hospitality I'd heard so much about.Christmastime also felt extra special celebrated against a snowy backdrop, and we experienced some of the most festive decorations we'd ever seen in Canada. I miss so much of the food BeaverTails are a popular fried snack in Canada. Melissa Renwick/Toronto Star via Getty Images During my time in Canada, I also fell in love with the food. I've traveled to many places but, in my opinion, North America seems to do food better than everybody else. The serving sizes tend to be big and the flavors strong and tasty. One of my favorite things to eat in Canada was the local favorite, poutine fries with cheese curds and brown gravy. It proved to be the perfect aprs-ski treat after a day of shredding the ski hills around Banff.There are so many other foods I miss, such as Nanaimo bars (made with wafers, nuts, and coconut crumbs) and fluffy pancakes with pure Canadian maple syrup.I'd also love to once again have fresh BeaverTails (a fried-dough treat) and the mighty Caesar (a zesty tomato-clam-juice cocktail with vodka).I still think about Banff, and I'd move back in a heartbeat After living in Canada, my partner and I moved to London and then to various parts of Australia, but we never felt that same magic.We miss Banff's incredible mountains, beaches, forests, and wildlife that often took our breath away. Above all else, we miss the people in Canada the most. We met some of the kindest, most caring souls you could imagine there people who instantly felt like family.If I had my time again, I would've spent longer in Canada before moving on after a year and a half. Even now, more than a decade later, I'd say goodbye to our home in Bright, Australia, and move back to Banff in a second.On all of my travels to more than 50 countries, I've never found another place quite like it, and it will always have a special place in my heart.

Nearly 150 people have been infected with measles in Texas and New Mexico, and last week, Texas health officials confirmed the first death in the ongoing outbreak: an unvaccinated child. While almost all of the infected are believed to be unvaccinated, five of them told the Texas health department they have received at least one measles shot.The United States declared measles eradicated in 2000 because the disease was no longer spreading locally (most cases in the following years were linked to travel to countries where the virus was still prevalent) But in recent years, outbreaks of the measles have been growing as more people across the country opt not to vaccinate. The recent reports of cases even among vaccinated people have added another layer of anxiety to the crisis. More than 90 percent of Americans got their measles shot as a kid. Exactly how reliable is that protection, given this news?First of all, there is no need to panic. It is not clear whether the five people who contracted measles were vaccinated as children. The Texas health department told me they were investigating, but they wouldnt classify these as breakthrough infections. Lara Anton, a department spokesperson, told me unvaccinated people who have been exposed to measles are given a vaccine within 72 hours if possible because it could reduce the severity of their symptoms. We are looking into how many of these cases received a dose of MMR after they were exposed to the virus, Anton said.To be clear, breakthrough cases can happen. But the risk today remains very low only about three in 100 people who receive two vaccine doses get sick when exposed. As Aaron Milstone, an infectious disease pediatrician at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, put it to me, you dont really have anything to worry about right now if you dont live in west Texas or eastern New Mexico.We dont want everyone to go out and think, I need to get boosted, Milstone said.But if you do live in those areas or youre not sure of your vaccine status or you simply want to be proactive about your health, there are some things you can easily do to check on your measles immunity. Heres what you should know.Why breakthrough measles cases happenOur measles protection strategy has evolved over the decades. People born before 1957, shortly before the first measles vaccine was introduced, are generally thought to have natural immunity because they were usually exposed to the virus as children. Those born before 1989 likely received at least one dose, which was the guidance during that period. After 1989, the recommendation increased to two doses, one around your first birthday and another around age 5.That change was made because a small percentage of people did not respond to only one measles shot. But almost everybody responded to two doses, Milstone said.As measles outbreaks become more common and more vaccinated people become exposed naturally for the first time in a long time, some small number of them may get sick, Milstone said.And, for a long time after that, measles vaccination rates were very high, above the 95 percent threshold experts say is necessary to keep the disease at bay. As a result, measles wasnt spreading widely within the US and most years saw zero or at most a handful of deaths caused by the virus.But measles vaccination rates have been declining. There had always been small insular communities that abstained from vaccinations; the current Texas outbreak has reportedly been primarily concentrated in a Mennonite community. But vaccine hesitancy has become more mainstream, particularly as its been embraced by some Republican leaders; several GOP-led states have acted to allow more vaccine exemptions in recent years. The share of Republican voters who think routine childhood vaccinations should be required to attend public school has dramatically fallen off since the pandemic.In the 20192020 school year, 20 states were still above the 95 percent vaccination rate threshold and just three had dropped below 90 percent. But for the 20232024 school year, only 11 states had more than 95 percent of schoolchildren vaccinated against the disease and 14 states had fallen under 90 percent.Its no surprise then that were seeing more measles outbreaks. The Texas outbreak alone already accounts for more than half of the total number of US measles cases in 2024, which was itself one of the most active years in recent memory.It is possible that measles immunity in some people can wane over time. As measles outbreaks become more common and more vaccinated people become exposed naturally for the first time in a long time, some small number of them may get sick, Milstone said.What you can do to make sure youre protectedAs Milstone told me, this remains a hypothetical risk for the vast majority of Americans, unless you are near an active outbreak. For now, the outbreak spreading at the Texas-New Mexico border is pretty contained.Even so, we are now living in a world where you are more likely to see a measles outbreak in your community. Other people may simply want to be assuaged or to exercise some agency about their own health especially if, for example, they are at higher risk from viral infections because they are immunocompromised or have chronic health conditions.Heres what you can do. First, check your vaccination records if you can find them. If you did receive two doses, you almost certainly had an immune response. If you received one dose, you probably did too, but it is a bit more likely that measles immunity never took, Milstone said. For those in this group, considering a measles booster is reasonable.Either way, the next step if you want to investigate further would be to talk to your doctor (as always, with anything regarding your health). They can administer a titer test that measures the measles antibodies in your body. If theyre still present great, youre protected. If theyre not, you can talk to your doctor about getting an additional measles shot.This is a new era for public health. Milstone said he and his fellow infectious disease doctors could not believe it when they heard the news of a childs death from measles in the United States.It remains entirely preventable by getting vaccinated. And if you are not sure about your immunization, you can take these simple steps to figure out your status. With the death of a school-aged child last week, the stakes are unfortunately all too clear.You hope people dont have to die for others to take this seriously, Milstone said.See More:

When was the last time you felt utterly, stupefyingly, mind-numbingly bored? It mightve been when you languished in the waiting room at a doctors office for 10 minutes too long. Or you felt your eyes glaze over in the middle of a philosophy class. Perhaps it was on a never-ending drive wherein your toddler insisted on hearing the same song over and over and over again. Maybe you are exceedingly bored right now (in which case, Im sorry, and I hope to recapture your attention).Boredom is a common occurrence in the ebb and flow of life. Its usually marked by a feeling of restlessness and agitation, says James Danckert, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Waterloo and the co-author of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom. A hunch that you must get out of here immediately. There is a functional aspect to boredom, though. The emotion is motivating, meant to spur you to action: This thing youre doing is not fulfilling or meaningful, so go find something else that is. Some are better at listening to that alarm than others, Danckert says, and those who say they never get bored are probably more skilled at dealing with it. Those who respond productively to the messages boredom sends have the power to make changes in their lives, big and small, which is great for you and bad for boredom. Boredom doesnt do the hard work of telling you what to do, Danckert says. It just tells you you need to do something else. Its up to you to figure out what that is. A desire for something differentWhile youve surely experienced boredom at some point or another, have you stopped to consider why? Erin Westgate, an assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Florida who studies boredom, defines the feeling as one in which we dont want to or cant engage with what were doing, either because we lack the attention to do it because the task is too easy or too difficult or it lacks meaning. Boredom can strike momentarily the impossibility of focusing while reading a dense book, for instance or it can take root over a longer period of time, such as when you find yourself working an unfulfilling job.Boredom doesnt do the hard work of telling you what to do. It just tells you you need to do something else.Boredom can be fairly universal: Few find waiting in line at the DMV a particularly riveting experience. But it is individual, too. A movie you consider engrossing may be a snooze to another viewer. This is why some people find being alone with their thoughts excruciating, while others revel in mind wandering, Westgate says. Sitting with your inner monologue absent other distractions is not equivalent to being bored, at least not for everyone. However, it can be boring if you dont particularly enjoy solitude. Another common misconception: People often conflate boredom with not having anything to do, Westgate says. On the contrary, if your day consists of monotonous, repetitive tasks, you may not have much downtime but feel bored. The uber-busy who claim to crave boredom may in fact be yearning for quiet contendedness, a moment to relax.Its true that filling your days with constant activities and entertainment may prevent you from getting bored in the first place. While this doesnt necessarily seem like a bad thing, if youre constantly masking boredom with another podcast or just one more episode, you are preventing yourself from knowing when youve gone off track from what you value and what you care about and what you can give to the world, Westgate says. Your perception of boredom can also impact how often you experience it. Those who see being bored as an impediment and frustration tend to be bored more often, says Wijnand Van Tilburg, a senior psychology lecturer at the University of Essex. On the contrary, those who see boredom as an inevitability of life get less bored and, when they do, cope with it more effectively.Dont mistake boredom for a completely innocuous force: it can lead to potentially negative behaviors and outcomes like self-harm, impulsivity, depression, anxiety, greater consumption of alcohol and other illicit substances, attention problems, low motivation, and poor work performance.And despite anecdotal evidence that says otherwise, boredom doesnt lead to inspired breakthroughs and increased creativity, research shows. Instead, its the moderately engaging activities, like showering or taking a walk, that actually lead to inspiration. The shower or the walk is neither so engrossing or boring as to distract your thoughts from churning thats the sweet spot you should be aiming for.Making the most of boredomSo how can you better deal with boredom when it strikes? How can you adequately decode what your boredom is signaling? When the feeling does arise, use it as a reminder that what youre doing isnt meaningful and to seek out something that is, experts say. This will differ depending on the context. You might pop in a podcast while folding laundry to help make the chore feel less like drudgery. Perhaps you could head to YouTube to find a bread-making tutorial on a dreary afternoon. It doesnt really matter what it is, Danckert says, but you have to deem it to be valid and worth doing.For circumstances where youre unable to up and leave, such as school or work, Westgate suggests trying to make the experience more profound. Focus on why am I here and whats the deeper purpose its serving so that the experience feels more meaningful, she says. Despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, boredom doesnt lead to inspired breakthroughs and increased creativity.Or maybe youre growing impatient on a long road trip: Try to find challenges or ways to make the situation more stimulating. Car games exist for a reason. Or make up your own. My brother and I, growing up, used to play this game called Who would you ask for help? Westgate says. In this room right now, if you had to pick one person to ask for help, who would it be and why?Of course, the solution to a soul-crushingly boring job might be to find another one that gives your life more meaning and purpose. Since this isnt exactly easy or realistic for many people, Danckert suggests reframing your current employment situation: Youre not living to work, youre working to live. That is, your job gives you money which allows you to do meaningful activities in your free time. For more short-term boredom, like waiting in line for a sandwich, Westgate says theres nothing wrong with using your phone as entertainment to pass the time. If looking at your phone is a form of distraction for a few minutes, that lets you stick with that boring, uncomfortable activity that you still need to do, thats probably fine, she says. I think the problem becomes when that is our response to all boredom. If youre using your phone as a crutch every time you feel the slightest whisper of boredom, you may develop some unhealthy habits like scrolling on the sidelines at your kids soccer game or while driving. In fact, constantly scrolling through short videos, like on TikTok, increases boredom, a study found. It reduces attention capacity, it reduces perceptions of meaning in ones activity, Van Tilburg says. It increases boredom, even though people think that doing so will help alleviate it.Instead of using your devices as a boredom security blanket, Van Tilburg suggests getting more comfortable breaking it up in myriad, tangible ways, like striking up a conversation while in line for coffee or creating phone-free areas at home (like the bedroom and bathroom). Try to embrace mind wandering instead of fearing silence.Boredom is a lot like goldilocks: You shouldnt avoid it completely, but too much of it isnt good either. Life doesnt need to be a monotonous fog, nor is it supposed to be perpetually rapturously engaging.Sometimes, Van Tilburg says, a little discomfort is useful to discover new things and develop new interests.See More:

Released in 2010 and bundled with the Xbox 360, the Kinect looked like the future for a brief moment, at least. A camera that could detect your gestures and replicate them on-screen in a game, the Kinect allowed players to control video games with their bodies. It was initially a sensation, selling 1m units in its first 10 days; it remains the fastest-selling gaming peripheral ever.However, a lack of games, unreliable performance and a motion-control market already monopolised by the Nintendo Wii caused enthusiasm for the Kinect to quickly cool. Microsoft released a new version of the Kinect with the Xbox One in 2013, only for it to become an embarrassing flop; the Kinect line was unceremoniously discontinued in 2017. The Guardian reached out to multiple people involved in the development of the peripheral, all of whom declined to comment or did not wish to go on record. Instead, the people keenest to discuss Microsofts motion-sensing camera never used it for gaming at all.Theo Watson is the co-founder of Design I/O, a creative studio specialising in interactive installations many of which use depth cameras, including the Kinect. When the Kinect came out, it really was like a dream situation, he recalls. We probably have 10+ installations around the world that have Kinects tracking people right now The gaming use of the Kinect was a blip.Assistants demonstrate the game Kinect Adventures for Xbox 360 during a media briefing in 2010. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni / Reuters/ReutersWatson speaks about the Kinect, which turns 15 this year, with rare relish. (I cannot stop talking about depth cameras, he adds. Its my passion.) As part of the collaborative effort OpenKinect, Watson contributed to making Microsofts gaming camera open-source, building on the work of Hector Marcan Martin. It quickly became apparent that the Kinect would not, as Microsoft had initially hoped, be the future of video games. Instead, it was a gamechanger in other ways: for artists, roboticists and ghost-hunters.The Kinect functions on a structured light system, meaning it creates depth data by projecting an infrared dot cloud and reads the deformations in that matrix to discern depth. From this data, its machine learning core was trained to see the human body. In games such as Kinect Sports, this allowed the camera to transform the body into a controller. For people making interactive artwork, meanwhile, it cut out much of the programming and busywork necessitated by more basic infrared cameras.The best analogy would be like going from black-and-white television to colour, says Watson. There was just this whole extra world that opened up for us. Though high-powered depth cameras had existed before, retailing at about $6,000 (4,740), Microsoft condensed that into a robust, lightweight device costing $150 (118).Robotocists were also grateful for an accessible sensor to grant their creations vision and movement. Before it, only planar 2D Lidar information was available to detect obstacles and map environments, says Walter Lucetti, a senior software engineer at Stereolabs, which is soon to release the latest version of its advanced depth-sensing cameras and software. The 2D Lidar detects objects by projecting a laser and measuring the time the light takes to reflect back; the Kinect, however, could create a detailed and accurate depth map that provided more information on what the obstaclemay be and how to navigate it. Before Kinect-like sensors, Lucetti says, a tuft of grass was not perceived differently from a rock, with all the consequences that entails for navigation.This type of depth camera now powers a host of autonomous robotics, including 2020s Perseverance Mars Rovers AutoNav system, and Apples facial identification tech. (Apple bought PrimeSense, the Israeli company behind the Kinects structured light system, in 2013.)Nasas Mars Perseverance Rover in 2020. Photograph: Nasa/UPI/REX/ShutterstockThe Kinects technology was soon eclipsed by freely available open-source sensors and more advanced motion-sensing devices. But since Microsoft ceased manufacture of the Kinect line in 2017, the little camera has enjoyed a spirited and not entirely un-troubled afterlife. It has watched over the Korean demilitarised zone and worked on topography and patient alignment in CT scanners; reports have emerged of it being used in airport baggage halls, as a security camera in Newark Liberty International airports Terminal C (United Airlines declined to comment on this), and even to gamify training for the US military. Its been attached to drones, rescue robots and even found a brief application in pornography.Im not sure anyone had a firm vision of what interactive sex involving the Kinect would be, says Kyle Machulis, founder of buttplug.io and another member of the OpenKinect team. The camera was deployed mostly as an over-complex controller for 3D sex games, fulfilling more of a futurist marketing role than anything of actual consumer use, Machulis says. In that role, it was successful: it attracted a flurry of attention, and threats from Microsoft to somehow ban porn involving Kinect. It was an interesting experiment, but it turned out that the addition of a novelty device was not a turn-on for many porn users. Besides, as Machulis says, when the camera malfunctions, it looks pretty horrible.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionUnreliability is of less concern for ghost hunters, who thrive on the ambiguity of ageing technology and who have rebranded the Kinect as the SLS (structured light sensor) camera. They deploy its body tracking to find figures the naked eye cannot see. Ghost hunters are thrilled by the Kinects habit of seeing bodies that arent really there, believing that these skeletal stick figures are representations of disembodied spirits.The paranormal investigation industry doesnt care much about false positives, so long as those false positives can be perceived as paranormal which is just as well, says Jon Wood, a freelance science performer who has a show devoted to examining ghost hunting technology. Its quite normal for ghost hunters to be filming themselves in the dark, with infrared cameras and torches. Youre bathing the scene with IR light, while using a sensor that measures a specific pattern of infrared dots, he says. Given that Kinect is designed specifically to recognise the human body in any data it receives, it would be stranger if the Kinect didnt pick up anomalous figures in this context.Theres a certain poetry in the Kinect living on among those searching for proof of life after death. In the right hands, the camera is still going strong. Theo Watson points me in the direction of Connected Worlds, an exhibition that has run in the New York Hall of Science since 2015. Of the many Kinect devices that power the installations, only two have had to be replaced in the decade since it opened and one of those was only a few weeks ago. Watson started stockpiling the device when Microsoft ceased production.Half the projects on our website wouldnt exist without the Kinect, he says. If we had this camera for another decade, we would still not run out of things to do with it.

John Cena made an astonishing heel turn at Elimination Chamber over the weekend, but the WWE star is more surprised it happened before we got GTA 6 and fans are wondering if he's in on the projectTech10:38, 03 Mar 2025Updated 10:38, 03 Mar 2025Does Cena know something about GTA 6 we don't?(Image: Getty Images)It was a big weekend in wrestling as WWE held its now-annual Elimination Chamber event, but it was the closing of the show that shocked viewers.Longtime 'goody-two-shoes' John Cena finally went bad, turning heel for the first time in his distinguished career. What has this got to do with Grand Theft Auto 6, I hear you ask?Cena himself posted on Instagram after the event, and it's got tongues wagging either because the Doctor of Thuganomics knows something about the game (which is still expected this year), or because he's involved in it. As it happens, there's a good chance he's just poking fun at a meme.Content cannot be displayed without consentPosting without a caption, Cena shared the key art from GTA 6 that Rockstar fans will be so familiar with at this point.The long-running "we really got x before we got GTA 6" meme has become tied with Cena's heel turn because it felt so unrealistic even a week ago.We got Cena hell before GTA 6. This is unbelievable, one comment said.Bros leaning into the GTA 6 jokes, another added, but Could Cena really be in GTA 6 though?Rockstar could headline one of the best years in gaming(Image: Rockstar)We've had reports we're going to hear some famous voices on the radio in the game, and having one of the most recognisable WWE superstars included in the game would certainly catch the eye and that's saying nothing of his roles in the DC Universe.Article continues belowStill, it's unlikely that's what he's hinting at especially given Rockstar's secretive nature. It seems unlikely Cena knows something we don't, at least for now.For more on GTA, be sure to check out all we know about the big update coming free for GTA 5 on PC, as well as a new horror title from former Rockstar devs.For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.