Bookmarks | World's call centre capital is gripped by AI fever - and fear

These are the articles, podcasts, videos and more that caught the attention of TechCentral’s editorial team in the past 24 hours.

The world’s call centre capital is gripped by AI fever – and fear: We were all expecting this headline at some point, right? The Philippines’ call centre industry faces huge challenges as AI adoption accelerates, threatening jobs while also creating new roles. Despite AI’s potential, concerns are mounting over the government’s preparedness to protect workers. Read more on Bloomberg (soft paywall). DM
New home battery hits 12 000 cycles, charges four times faster, lives 48 years: A new home battery has been announced that boasts an incredible 12 000 charging cycles. That’s like giving your smartphone a full charge every day for over 32 years – if only your phone could last that long! Read more on Interesting Engineering. DM
AI company Midjourney teases hardware product in a new form factor: Midjourney, known for its AI image generation tools, has announced it’s entering the hardware market. It’s even hired a former Apple Vision Pro manager as head of hardware. The company teased an unspecified device, though details remain vague. Read more on Ars Technica. DM
We’ll soon get the sharpest image ever of a black hole: The Event Horizon Telescope has achieved the highest-resolution images ever from Earth by using shorter wavelengths, enhancing its ability to observe black holes. This new approach could produce images 50% sharper than before, revealing new details about black holes, and potentially allowing for the observation of more distant or smaller black holes than those previously imaged. Read more on Gizmodo. DM
This AI model can simulate the PC game Doom in real time: We’ve all seen how AI image generators can churn out pictures of whatever you’d like. But what if you took the same technology and applied it to generating stills for a playable game? Researchers at Google recently used this concept to develop an AI model that’s capable of simulating the 1993 classic PC shooter Doom but without using computer code from the game itself. Read more on PCMag. TS
Samsung blames third-party chargers for paint peeling off the Galaxy Z Fold6: Some buyers of Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Fold6 have noticed bits of paint chipping off their devices, and Samsung is pinning the blame on third-party chargers and other accessories. More on 9to5Google. TS
Should kids play Wordle?: There is general consensus that playing board games like Scrabble is good for both the adult and developing brain. But not much research has been done on the digital word games like Wordle. Researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education weigh in on Harvard News. NN
US Open: Coco Gauff, Caroline Garcia and other tennis players say cyberbullying is still a problem: Bookies and gamblers who make big bets on major sporting events like tennis grand slam tournaments are resorting to cyber bullying as a tactic for influencing match outcomes, increasing the chances of them getting a payout. Read more on ABC News.