Monthly Archives: August 2024

[ad_1] Dodo Pizza Dodo Pizza did not put the AI-created blueberry and breakfast cereal pizza on sale “We asked [popular AI chatbot] ChatGPT to create a recipe – the best pizza for Dubai,” says Spartak Arutyunyan, who heads menu development for the city’s branch of restaurant and delivery chain Dodo Pizza. “And it did create a recipe. We launched it, it was actually a huge hit, and it’s still on the menu.” With 90% of Dubai’s three million people being immigrants, “there’s so many cultures here”, says Mr Arutyunyan. “Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, Arab people, European guys.” He asked ChatGPT to come up with a pizza that represented that cultural mix. Its response was a topping comprising Arab shawarma chicken, Indian grilled paneer cheese, Middle Eastern Za’atar herbs, and tahini sauce. And Dodo Pizza’s customers apparently cannot get enough of it. “As a chef, I wouldn’t mix these ingredients ever on a pizza, but still, the mix of flavours was surprisingly good,” says Mr Arutyunyan. Yet other pizzas dreamed up by the AI did not make it to the menu, for example strawberries and pasta, and blueberries and breakfast cereal. Spartak Arutyunyan Spartak Arutyunyan says the AI-created pizza they put on sale was a “huge hit” A world away in the US, Venecia Willis conducted a similar AI experiment at Dallas’ Velvet Taco, where she is culinary director. She became “really curious” about AI, so she let ChatGPT loose on devising one of their tacos of the week. For prompts, Ms Willis says she told it to “use, like, eight ingredients, and it could only select one tortilla and one protein”. Some recipe results were rather less than moreish. “There were some funky combinations, and I was like, I’m not really sure if red curry, coconut tofu and pineapple are going to be delicious together,” says Ms Willis. But she made three of the recipes that looked more promising, and ultimately chose a prawns and steak taco to go on public sale. They sold 22,000 in a week. “I think AI is a great tool to use when you’re in a bit of a creative slump, to get the brain going again – ‘that combination might actually work, let’s try it’. The AI can suggest something maybe I wouldn’t have thought of.” But Ms Willis adds that she “wouldn’t go completely rogue with AI. There has to be a human element to validate recipes.” Venecia Willis Venecia Willis says the AI came up with some “funky” taco suggestions Not everyone in the food trade loves the idea of AI though. London-based cocktail creator Julian de Feral says he avoids AI because it “seems very counter-intuitive”, with its choices lacking common sense. AI chatbots are “not magic”, warns Emily Bender, a linguistics professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. She says that they have instead learned from what they have read online. “If you can get ChatGPT to spit out something that looks like a recipe, then it’s because there are recipes on the internet.” She adds that the AI could have grabbed the recipe from someone’s cookery blog, thereby decreasing their reader numbers, and their ability to make a living from subscriptions or advertising revenue. However, Prof Bender does concede that in the future more sophisticated AI may be helpful in recipe creation. She says that the AI could be asked to “categorise ingredients as sweet, or acidic, and so on”, find those that the internet says should taste good together, and then come up with endless detailed recipes. “However, you have to have a well-defined research question [to give the AI] to get that kind of benefit,” she adds. Still, UK supermarket chain Waitrose is using AI to spot rising food trends on social media. Currently these include “smash burgers” – crispy burgers made by squashing ground beef onto a super-hot pan – and “crookies” – a croissant filled with cookie dough and chocolate chips. “We saw smash burgers trending all over social media,” says Lizzie Haywood, Waitrose’s innovations manager. “Now three or four dedicated smash burger restaurants opening up in the UK has coincided with us launching our smash burgers.” As for crookies, she says the AI saw that the mention of them had “jumped 80 to 90% from last year on social media, and we managed to launch them into trial stores in three months”. Waitrose Waitrose uses AI to trawl the internet for food trends, such as crookies In Singapore, Italian expat Stefano Cantù has created an AI-powered app that can suggest recipes in response to you telling it what ingredients you have in your fridge and cupboards. In a nod to the app being powered by ChatGPT he has called it “ChefGPT”. “I’m Italian, so of course I cook stuff,” says Mr Cantù, whose day job is at a software company. He says he came up with the idea “over a weekend” after asking ChatGPT for recipe inspirations. The app also has drop-down menus and toggles, to let a user specify tools they have in their kitchen, or if they’re in a hurry or not a very good cook. The AI then comes up with a recipe and a picture of the dish. Mr Cantù says he got 30,000 users within a week and a half of launching last year. But then he got “quite a big bill from OpenAI”, the company behind ChatGPT. He now continues to pay OpenAI a regular fee for using its AI. Mr Cantù explains that this is a standard arrangement when a start-up like his builds its app on top of another company’s technology. He adds that he is continuing to try to find “the right balance between advertising and subscriptions, and the right level of usage to give free users”. And how he can “monetise free users without selling their data”. Back in Dubai, Spartak Arutyunyan at Dodo Pizza says AI should be seen as more of a fun thing to use rather than something you’d base

[ad_1] Men’s Health: An Overview  News-Medical.Net [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] After Trump’s little stunt at Arlington National Cemetery… [ad_2] View Reddit by outhouse_steakhouse – View Source

[ad_1] By Jake Fenner Published: 00:05 EDT, 30 August 2024 | Updated: 01:14 EDT, 30 August 2024 New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge decided to go from one New York City borough to another as he took in the US Open in Queens. Rather than bash home runs for the Bronx Bombers, the Yankees slugger took in the sights and sounds of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. He was joined with his wife Samantha Bracksieck – along with teammate Anthony Rizzo and wife Emily Rizzo.  They were seen sipping on the tournament’s signature cocktail – known as the ‘honey deuce’, which is Grey Goose vodka, lemonade, Chambord, and comes with three melon balls. The foursome were seated on Arthur Ashe Stadium to watch as Karolina Muchova knocked off former US Open champion Naomi Osaka. Yankees stars Aaron Judge (R) and Anthony Rizzo (L) took in the US Open in Flushing Meadows Judge was seen enjoying himself on Arthur Ashe while drinking a ‘honey deuce’ cocktail This has become a tradition for Judge, who has taken his wife to the tennis tournament for the last two years. It’s a well deserved night off for the slugger, who has been on an absolute tear this season – especially in recent weeks. In August alone, Judge has slashed .415/.556/.927 with 12 home runs and 24 RBIs as well as 24 walks, six doubles, and a pair of stolen bases. He currently leads all of Major League Baseball with 51 home runs, 123 RBIs, a .467 on-base percentage, a .731 slugging percentage, and a 1.198 OPS. Judge’s .333 batting average is second in the majors only to Kansas City Royals star Bobby Witt (.345). The slugger also has the league’s best Wins Above Replacement (WAR) mark of 10.1 and could be projected to beat his own American League record for home runs (62). New York will soon get a boost to their lineup with Rizzo, who is about to return from a rehab assignment with the Double-A affiliate Somerset Patriots after going on the injured list with a forearm injury in mid-June. It couldn’t come at a better time – with the AL East division race getting tight as ever. The Yankees will hope to keep their lead over the Baltimore Orioles when they begin a three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Share or comment on this article: Aaron Judge is joined by wife Samantha and fellow Yankees at US Open as the MLB stars trade the Bronx for Queens on day off [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Ross Jarman Ihab Amed working on the test jet engine In a building on the edge of a business park outside Sheffield, researcher Ihab Ahmed is preparing to fire up a small jet engine. Originally used as an auxiliary power unit for a commercial airliner, it has been turned into a testbed for new fuels developed in a laboratory next door. The arrangement is a centrepiece of Sheffield University’s Sustainable Fuels Innovation Centre (SAF-IC), a research facility set up to allow synthetic fuels to be prepared and evaluated on a small scale, before being put into large scale production. On a bank of computer screens in a nearby control room, Ihab can monitor the engine as it starts with a burst of flame and powers up. Sensors tell him what the engine is doing in real time – and allow the exhaust gases to be continually analysed. Sustainable fuels are synthetic alternatives to fossil fuels, made from renewable sources. These can include waste cooking oils, vegetable fats and agricultural waste, as well as captured carbon dioxide. The advantage of burning fuels like these is that it does not add to the overall load of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The carbon emitted has only recently been removed, either by plants or by chemical processes. By contrast, burning fossil fuels releases carbon that has been stored in the earth for millions of years. “From an environmental perspective, it’s day and night,” Mr Ahmed explains. “In principle, the CO2 should be a net zero, so there is no more carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere, but another benefit is the non-CO2 part of things. “For example, it reduces the particulates or smoke that comes out of the engine, which can affect your lungs, as well as contributing to the creation of contrails.” Using a test jet engine Ihab Amed analyses how sustainable aviation fuels perform For the aviation industry, this is potentially a game-changer. According to forecasts from both Airbus and Boeing, the global airliner fleet is expected to more than double over the next two decades, as the middle classes in countries like India and China expand, and demand for air travel increases. At the same time, members of the International Air Transport Association, which represents airlines, have committed to reaching net zero by 2050. Some gains will be made by replacing older planes with new ones. The most modern aircraft are between 15 and 30% more fuel efficient than their predecessors. Yet if the industry is to continue expanding, much more will be needed. In the longer term, new technologies such as hydrogen power and electrification are likely to play a role, at least on shorter routes. But there are steep challenges to overcome. Hydrogen, for example, is bulky and difficult to store in large quantities. It either needs to be kept as a highly compressed gas or as a very cold liquid. To be sustainable, it has to be made in a “clean” way, from renewable sources – and supplies now are very limited. “We believe we could bring a small hydrogen fuel cell aircraft to the market between 2035 and 2045, technically,” says Arjen Meijer, chief executive of the Brazilian jet maker Embraer. “But the question that needs to be answered is: will there be sufficient hydrogen to feed those aircraft? These things need to come together. They can’t happen separately.” Batteries, meanwhile, are currently very heavy in relation to the energy they contain. This makes them unsuitable for powering large planes, or being used over long distances. This means that hydrogen and hybrid, or fully electric, planes remain years away. Sustainable aviation fuels, by contrast, can be made in the lab to have the same characteristics as conventional ones derived from crude oil, so they can be used in today’s aircraft. Reuters Last year Virgin Atlantic powered a transatlantic flight using 100% sustainable fuel There are restrictions. Airlines must currently use a blend of SAF with ordinary fuel, with the SAF component not exceeding 50%. However, modern planes are capable of burning 100% SAF. In a specially approved test flight last year, Virgin Atlantic flew a Boeing 787 from London to New York using fuel exclusively produced from waste fats and plant sugars. “The technologies are already available and certified for use in aircraft,” explains Julie Kitcher, chief sustainability officer at Airbus. “The challenge with sustainable fuels is really about getting it produced at scale, across the globe, because this is a global industry, at an affordable price.” And that is very clearly the catch. Supplies of SAF are currently minimal. According to the European regulator EASA, they make up just 0.05% of the fuel used in the EU. They also cost between three and five times as much as “regular” jet fuel. Governments want to change this. In the UK a “SAF mandate” has been introduced, which stipulates that from next year, 2% of all jet fuel supplied must be SAF, increasing to 10% in 2030 and 22% in 2040. The EU has a similar mandate, although it extends to 2050 – when the target for SAF use will be 63%. The US does not have minimum requirements but offers subsidies to bring down the price of sustainable fuels. But if SAF usage is to increase, production will also need to be ramped up dramatically. British firm Firefly is making aviation fuel from human waste There are many different methods, or pathways for making sustainable fuels. They can be made from biomass, such as waste cooking oil, energy crops, wood, agricultural residues and even human waste. However, there are concerns that this will not provide all the fuel the market will ultimately need. Some feedstocks may need to be avoided, either to prevent environmental degradation such as deforestation, or to prevent land needed for growing food from being turned over to energy production. An alternative is to use a method called power to liquid, in which water and carbon dioxide are broken down, with