Monday 22 April 2024
Divyanka Tripathi Recovering After Breaking Multiple Bones, Vivek Dahiya Shares Recovery Updates
Rubber Duck Released In Ireland Found 644 Km Away After 18 Years https://ift.tt/2HWl4RK In a bizarre incident, a rubber duck that escaped a failed world record attempt nearly 18 years ago in Ireland has been found by a teenager 400 miles (644 km) away, New York Post said in a report. The duck was part of 150,000 yellow toys that were launched into the River Liffey in Dublin as part of the charity World Duck Race in June 2006. The race was meant to take the ducks one kilometre down the river and under five bridges. But several broke into the sea despite the organisers' best attempts. Now, so many years later, one duck has been found nearly 650 kilometres away on the island of Stronsay in the Orkney archipelago in Scotland. It was found by Filip Miller, 13, who was walking his dogs. He brought the toy home and his mother Marion noticed the writing on it. "The spring tides have been really high recently, and my son was walking the dogs along the shore. He was finding some bits and pieces and then he said, 'There's a rubber duck'," the woman told the Post. Photos posted by the teen show that despite the years at sea, the duck was still in relatively good condition, still having a bright orange beak, dark eyes and the race's information printed on its front. "I had a look at it and saw writing on it. That's when I saw it said, 'World Record Duck Race, Ireland 2006,' and so we got a bit excited and started Googling it," Marion further said. Each duck in the race was sponsored, with the first duck to pass under five bridges being declared the winner - the winning sponsor was awarded a trip to the US. Other ducks from the race have been found in Morecambe, England, and the Isle of Wight in the English Channel - with one even being spotted in Sweden. CBS News said the world record attempt failed, but succeeded at raising money for a local children's hospital. The latest world record for such a race was sealed in 2009 with 205,000 plastic ducks floating down the River Thames. https://ift.tt/GcgWHXj April 22, 2024 at 11:46AM NDTV News-Offbeat https://www.ndtv.com
In a bizarre incident, a rubber duck that escaped a failed world record attempt nearly 18 years ago in Ireland has been found by a teenager 400 miles (644 km) away, New York Post said in a report. The duck was part of 150,000 yellow toys that were launched into the River Liffey in Dublin as part of the charity World Duck Race in June 2006. The race was meant to take the ducks one kilometre down the river and under five bridges.
But several broke into the sea despite the organisers' best attempts. Now, so many years later, one duck has been found nearly 650 kilometres away on the island of Stronsay in the Orkney archipelago in Scotland.
It was found by Filip Miller, 13, who was walking his dogs. He brought the toy home and his mother Marion noticed the writing on it.
"The spring tides have been really high recently, and my son was walking the dogs along the shore. He was finding some bits and pieces and then he said, 'There's a rubber duck'," the woman told the Post.
Photos posted by the teen show that despite the years at sea, the duck was still in relatively good condition, still having a bright orange beak, dark eyes and the race's information printed on its front.
"I had a look at it and saw writing on it. That's when I saw it said, 'World Record Duck Race, Ireland 2006,' and so we got a bit excited and started Googling it," Marion further said.
Each duck in the race was sponsored, with the first duck to pass under five bridges being declared the winner - the winning sponsor was awarded a trip to the US.
Other ducks from the race have been found in Morecambe, England, and the Isle of Wight in the English Channel - with one even being spotted in Sweden.
CBS News said the world record attempt failed, but succeeded at raising money for a local children's hospital.
The latest world record for such a race was sealed in 2009 with 205,000 plastic ducks floating down the River Thames.
https://ift.tt/GcgWHXj April 22, 2024 at 11:46AM NDTV News-Offbeat https://www.ndtv.comWorld Earth Day 2024: Date, Theme, Significance, History And Things To Do- All You Need To Know
On Earth Day, Google Doodle Spotlights Climate Change https://ift.tt/Pui0ONU Celebrating Earth Day, Google used breathtaking aerial views to showcase Earth's natural wonders and rich biodiversity. This served as a reminder of the importance of safeguarding these treasures for those who come after us. As per the official website of Google Doodle, the letters of the search engine showcased some places across the globe where "people, communities, and governments work every day to help protect the planet's natural beauty, biodiversity and resources. These examples promise hope and optimism, but also remind us that there's much more to do to address the climate crisis and biodiversity loss." The six letters remind people to "practice sustainable habits year-round, and to continue the work needed to conserve water, electricity, and other resources," the website stated. The Google Doodle wasn't just a pretty picture! Each letter showcased a real-world conservation effort. The "G" highlighted the Turks and Caicos Islands, known for their biodiversity and ongoing efforts to protect natural resources and endangered species. Moving on, the "O" featured Scorpion Reef National Park in Mexico, the largest reef in the southern Gulf of Mexico. This UNESCO biosphere reserve safeguards complex coral reefs and shelters endangered birds and turtles. According to the website, the letter 'L' features the Great Green Wall in Nigeria, an "African Union-led initiative is restoring land affected by desertification across the width of Africa, planting trees and other vegetation while implementing sustainable land management practices." The last letter E shows the Pilbara Islands Nature Reserves in Australia, which, according to the website, is "one of 20 nature reserves in Australia that help protect fragile ecosystems, increasingly rare natural habitats, and several threatened or endangered species." This year, the theme of the Earth Day 2024 is "Planet vs. Plastics" which calls to "advocate for widespread awareness on the health risk of plastics, rapidly phase out all single use plastics, urgently push for a strong UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution, and demand an end to fast fashion," according to the official website of Earth Day. https://ift.tt/rX5eKwT April 22, 2024 at 08:31AM NDTV News-Offbeat https://www.ndtv.com
Celebrating Earth Day, Google used breathtaking aerial views to showcase Earth's natural wonders and rich biodiversity. This served as a reminder of the importance of safeguarding these treasures for those who come after us.
As per the official website of Google Doodle, the letters of the search engine showcased some places across the globe where "people, communities, and governments work every day to help protect the planet's natural beauty, biodiversity and resources. These examples promise hope and optimism, but also remind us that there's much more to do to address the climate crisis and biodiversity loss."
The six letters remind people to "practice sustainable habits year-round, and to continue the work needed to conserve water, electricity, and other resources," the website stated.
The Google Doodle wasn't just a pretty picture! Each letter showcased a real-world conservation effort. The "G" highlighted the Turks and Caicos Islands, known for their biodiversity and ongoing efforts to protect natural resources and endangered species. Moving on, the "O" featured Scorpion Reef National Park in Mexico, the largest reef in the southern Gulf of Mexico. This UNESCO biosphere reserve safeguards complex coral reefs and shelters endangered birds and turtles.
According to the website, the letter 'L' features the Great Green Wall in Nigeria, an "African Union-led initiative is restoring land affected by desertification across the width of Africa, planting trees and other vegetation while implementing sustainable land management practices."
The last letter E shows the Pilbara Islands Nature Reserves in Australia, which, according to the website, is "one of 20 nature reserves in Australia that help protect fragile ecosystems, increasingly rare natural habitats, and several threatened or endangered species."
This year, the theme of the Earth Day 2024 is "Planet vs. Plastics" which calls to "advocate for widespread awareness on the health risk of plastics, rapidly phase out all single use plastics, urgently push for a strong UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution, and demand an end to fast fashion," according to the official website of Earth Day.
https://ift.tt/rX5eKwT April 22, 2024 at 08:31AM NDTV News-Offbeat https://www.ndtv.comSunday 21 April 2024
Microsoft's New AI App Makes Mona Lisa Sing, Internet Calls It ''Crazy'' https://ift.tt/uCgA0UV Microsoft recently introduced a new artificial intelligence (AI) model that can generate hyper-realistic videos of talking human faces. Dubbed VASA-1, the AI image-to-video model can transform still photos of people's faces into lively animations. The company says the created videos will have synchronised lip movements to match the audio as well as facial expressions and head movement to make it appear natural. Recently, a video demonstrating the app's capabilities went viral on social media, leaving people amazed. The AI-generated video shows Mona Lisa, the iconic painting by Leonardo da Vinci, lip-syncing to Anne Hathaway's 'Paparazzi'. ''Microsoft just dropped VASA-1. This AI can make a single image sing and talk from audio reference expressively. Similar to EMO from Alibaba. 10 wild examples: 1. Mona Lisa rapping Paparazzi,'' the caption of the thread shared by Min Choi reads. Watch the video here: Microsoft just dropped VASA-1. This AI can make single image sing and talk from audio reference expressively. Similar to EMO from Alibaba 10 wild examples: 1. Mona Lisa rapping Paparazzi pic.twitter.com/LSGF3mMVnD — Min Choi (@minchoi) April 18, 2024 The video has gone viral, with some being amused by the funny clip. One user wrote, ''The Mona Lisa clip had me rolling on the floor laughing.'' Another commented, ''Oh, man. If only Da Vinci could witness this.'' Some also expressed their concerns about its unethical usage, especially to create deep fakes. A third wrote, ''Creepy? Fascinating? For one thing, deepfake potential just grew exponentially…but opens up some interesting creative possibilities as well.'' A fourth added, ''Deepfake Tech Just Took a Terrifying Leap Forward and it's more convincingly deceptive than we ever imagined.'' According to Microsoft, VASA is a framework for generating lifelike talking faces of virtual characters with appealing visual affective skills (VAS). ''VASA-1, is capable of not only producing lip movements that are exquisitely synchronized with the audio, but also capturing a large spectrum of facial nuances and natural head motions that contribute to the perception of authenticity and liveliness. The core innovations include a holistic facial dynamics and head movement generation model that works in a face latent space, and the development of such an expressive and disentangled face latent space using videos,'' the company wrote. ''We have no plans to release an online demo, API, product, additional implementation details, or any related offerings until we are certain that the technology will be used responsibly and by proper regulations,'' Microsoft added. https://ift.tt/tK0ImkT April 21, 2024 at 11:39AM NDTV News-Offbeat https://www.ndtv.com
Microsoft recently introduced a new artificial intelligence (AI) model that can generate hyper-realistic videos of talking human faces. Dubbed VASA-1, the AI image-to-video model can transform still photos of people's faces into lively animations. The company says the created videos will have synchronised lip movements to match the audio as well as facial expressions and head movement to make it appear natural.
Recently, a video demonstrating the app's capabilities went viral on social media, leaving people amazed. The AI-generated video shows Mona Lisa, the iconic painting by Leonardo da Vinci, lip-syncing to Anne Hathaway's 'Paparazzi'.
''Microsoft just dropped VASA-1. This AI can make a single image sing and talk from audio reference expressively. Similar to EMO from Alibaba. 10 wild examples: 1. Mona Lisa rapping Paparazzi,'' the caption of the thread shared by Min Choi reads.
Watch the video here:
Microsoft just dropped VASA-1.
— Min Choi (@minchoi) April 18, 2024
This AI can make single image sing and talk from audio reference expressively. Similar to EMO from Alibaba
10 wild examples:
1. Mona Lisa rapping Paparazzi pic.twitter.com/LSGF3mMVnD
The video has gone viral, with some being amused by the funny clip. One user wrote, ''The Mona Lisa clip had me rolling on the floor laughing.'' Another commented, ''Oh, man. If only Da Vinci could witness this.''
Some also expressed their concerns about its unethical usage, especially to create deep fakes.
A third wrote, ''Creepy? Fascinating? For one thing, deepfake potential just grew exponentially…but opens up some interesting creative possibilities as well.''
A fourth added, ''Deepfake Tech Just Took a Terrifying Leap Forward and it's more convincingly deceptive than we ever imagined.''
According to Microsoft, VASA is a framework for generating lifelike talking faces of virtual characters with appealing visual affective skills (VAS).
''VASA-1, is capable of not only producing lip movements that are exquisitely synchronized with the audio, but also capturing a large spectrum of facial nuances and natural head motions that contribute to the perception of authenticity and liveliness. The core innovations include a holistic facial dynamics and head movement generation model that works in a face latent space, and the development of such an expressive and disentangled face latent space using videos,'' the company wrote.
''We have no plans to release an online demo, API, product, additional implementation details, or any related offerings until we are certain that the technology will be used responsibly and by proper regulations,'' Microsoft added.
https://ift.tt/tK0ImkT April 21, 2024 at 11:39AM NDTV News-Offbeat https://www.ndtv.comDivyanka Tripathi Recovering After Breaking Multiple Bones, Vivek Dahiya Shares Recovery Updates
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Saturday 20 April 2024
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X User Praises IndiGo For Their "Unbelievable Efficiency", Internet Reacts https://ift.tt/0yfPzqp From missing seat cushions to finding a screw in a sandwich, in recent months, several unusual incidents have occurred on IndiGo flights. But now an X user took the microblogging site to highlight the positive side of the airline. In his post, Ajay Rotti said that he was recently flying in IndiGo and noticed the schedule of the flight. After finding out that the plane had been flying since 6 am and had 8 destinations scheduled, Mr Rotti said that he was impressed by the "unbelievable efficiency" of the airline. "Unbelievable efficiency. My Indigo flight from Chennai landed and parked at the International terminal. Just out of curiosity checked it's schedule. The aircraft has been flying from 6am getting ready for 7th flight out of 8 schedules with 4 international legs! It will return to Bangalore tomorrow morning from Singapore! All of 24hrs machine is earning. Give the Devil it's due!" Mr Rotti wrote in his post. Take a look below: Unbelievable efficiency. My Indigo flight from Chennai landed and parked at the International terminal. Just out of curiosity checked it's schedule. The aircraft has been flying from 6am getting ready for 7th flight out of 8 schedules with 4 international legs! It will return to… pic.twitter.com/riGKFCQKh9 — Ajay Rotti (@ajayrotti) April 17, 2024 Mr Rotti shared the post a few days back. Since then, it has accumulated more than 242,000 views and several comments. Several users concurred with Mr Rotti's views about the airline's efficiency. His post also prompted a response from IndiGo. "Mr Rotti, thanks a bunch for acknowledging the effort put in by our teams to keep our flights running smoothly every day. It's all in a day's work for us, but it means a lot to hear that our customers notice and appreciate it. See you onboard soon," the airline wrote. Mr Rotti, thanks a bunch for acknowledging the effort put in by our teams to keep our flights running smoothly every day. It's all in a day's work for us, but it means a lot to hear that our customers notice and appreciate it. See you onboard soon :) ~Prabh — IndiGo (@IndiGo6E) April 18, 2024 Meanwhile, in the comments, one user wrote, "Always amazed by human evolution and achievement when I see these machines constantly crossing oceans and thousands of miles back to back with little break". "Always have appreciated IndiGo for its great turnover time. Recently experienced even better turnover times in Hong Kong Express. I was still walking towards the immigration in Chiang Mai when they had already started boarding for the flight back to Hong Kong," commented another. Also Read | Passenger Says IndiGo's Upma Contains More Sodium Than Maggi, Airline Responds "blows my mind honestly that a machine could survive so much..could thank strict regulations but airplanes are truly incredible feats of engineering," expressed a third user. "Even I noticed this yesterday while checking for my indigo flight to hyd. 8 trips in a day, absolutely crazy!" said one user. "No wonder it's the only airlines consistently making profits inspite of the headwinds it's been facing. Just pure common sense and effective utilisation of the resources. I hope that regular aircraft maintenance is also happening with almost continuous flying," wrote another. https://ift.tt/jJan8HF April 20, 2024 at 11:36AM NDTV News-Offbeat https://www.ndtv.com
From missing seat cushions to finding a screw in a sandwich, in recent months, several unusual incidents have occurred on IndiGo flights. But now an X user took the microblogging site to highlight the positive side of the airline. In his post, Ajay Rotti said that he was recently flying in IndiGo and noticed the schedule of the flight. After finding out that the plane had been flying since 6 am and had 8 destinations scheduled, Mr Rotti said that he was impressed by the "unbelievable efficiency" of the airline.
"Unbelievable efficiency. My Indigo flight from Chennai landed and parked at the International terminal. Just out of curiosity checked it's schedule. The aircraft has been flying from 6am getting ready for 7th flight out of 8 schedules with 4 international legs! It will return to Bangalore tomorrow morning from Singapore! All of 24hrs machine is earning. Give the Devil it's due!" Mr Rotti wrote in his post.
Take a look below:
Unbelievable efficiency. My Indigo flight from Chennai landed and parked at the International terminal. Just out of curiosity checked it's schedule. The aircraft has been flying from 6am getting ready for 7th flight out of 8 schedules with 4 international legs! It will return to… pic.twitter.com/riGKFCQKh9
— Ajay Rotti (@ajayrotti) April 17, 2024
Mr Rotti shared the post a few days back. Since then, it has accumulated more than 242,000 views and several comments. Several users concurred with Mr Rotti's views about the airline's efficiency. His post also prompted a response from IndiGo.
"Mr Rotti, thanks a bunch for acknowledging the effort put in by our teams to keep our flights running smoothly every day. It's all in a day's work for us, but it means a lot to hear that our customers notice and appreciate it. See you onboard soon," the airline wrote.
Mr Rotti, thanks a bunch for acknowledging the effort put in by our teams to keep our flights running smoothly every day. It's all in a day's work for us, but it means a lot to hear that our customers notice and appreciate it. See you onboard soon :) ~Prabh
— IndiGo (@IndiGo6E) April 18, 2024
Meanwhile, in the comments, one user wrote, "Always amazed by human evolution and achievement when I see these machines constantly crossing oceans and thousands of miles back to back with little break".
"Always have appreciated IndiGo for its great turnover time. Recently experienced even better turnover times in Hong Kong Express. I was still walking towards the immigration in Chiang Mai when they had already started boarding for the flight back to Hong Kong," commented another.
Also Read | Passenger Says IndiGo's Upma Contains More Sodium Than Maggi, Airline Responds
"blows my mind honestly that a machine could survive so much..could thank strict regulations but airplanes are truly incredible feats of engineering," expressed a third user.
"Even I noticed this yesterday while checking for my indigo flight to hyd. 8 trips in a day, absolutely crazy!" said one user.
"No wonder it's the only airlines consistently making profits inspite of the headwinds it's been facing. Just pure common sense and effective utilisation of the resources. I hope that regular aircraft maintenance is also happening with almost continuous flying," wrote another.
https://ift.tt/jJan8HF April 20, 2024 at 11:36AM NDTV News-Offbeat https://www.ndtv.com