James' World 2

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You may have noticed a new trend taking over your Instagram feed. Your friends are turning themselves into digital art with the help of an artificial intelligence-generated app called Lensa.

Lensa AI is currently the top free app in Apple

App Store, though you’ll have to pay to use the AI artwork feature.

Lensa first launched as a photo editing tool in 2018, but last month the company released a new feature called “Magic Avatars.” These AI-generated digital self-portraits turn you into works of art in a variety of themes, from pop to fairy princesses, to anime.

You get a 7-day free trial. Subscription fees vary after that, with yearly unlimited access ranging from $14.99 to $49.99. To use the “Magic Avatar” tool, you’ll pay an additional $3.99 for 50 images.

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When the pandemic began, I didn’t place any bets on what the future would hold. But if I had, I would certainly be out a lot of money. One of my expectations was that pandemic-induced economic uncertainty would result in a baby bust. I had research on my side indicating that unemployment leads to reduced conceptions. Others made similar predictions—Brookings Institution researchers forecast in June 2020 that the pandemic would result in up to half a million fewer births in 2021. “Recessions mean fewer children,” they wrote.

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H. Armstrong Roberts / Getty; FPG / Getty

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In a press conference that Ars attended today, Department of Defense officials discussed the benefits of partnering with Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon to build the Pentagon’s new cloud computing network. The multi-cloud strategy was described as a necessary move to keep military personnel current as technology has progressed and officials’ familiarity with cloud technology has matured.

Air Force Lieutenant General Robert Skinner said that this Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract—worth $9 billion—would help quickly expand cloud capabilities across all defense departments. He described new accelerator capabilities like preconfigured templates and infrastructure as code that will make it so that even “people who don’t understand cloud can leverage cloud” technologies. Such capabilities could help troops on the ground easily access data gathered by unmanned aircraft or space communications satellites.

“JWCC is a multiple-award contract vehicle that will provide the DOD the opportunity to acquire commercial cloud capabilities and services directly from the commercial Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) at the speed of mission, at all classification levels, from headquarters to the tactical edge,” DOD’s press release said.

Until now, officials did not have direct access to cloud providers, and military personnel located around the world didn’t have cloud technology capable of providing access to files at all three classification levels: unclassified, secret, and top secret. With JWCC, that’s changed, and now the defense department expects to be able to pass on intelligence more quickly.

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[Photo: KARRASTOCK/Getty Images]

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Not a week goes by when I don’t see someone in my clinic complaining of a strange and constant phantom sound in one of their ears, or in both ears. The noise is loud, distracting, and scary – and it doesn’t go away.

The kind of sound varies from patient to patient: buzzing, blowing, hissing, ringing, roaring, rumbling, whooshing or a combination thereof. But whatever the sound, the condition is called tinnitus. And one thing tinnitus patients have in common is that the sound is not an external one. Instead, the noise is literally inside their head.

As a neurotologist – that’s an ear specialist – I have seen approximately 2,500 tinnitus patients during my 20-year career. That might sound like a lot, but it shouldn’t be a surprise – up to 15% of the U.S. population experiences tinnitus. That’s more than 50 million Americans.

Roughly 20 million of those have burdensome, chronic tinnitus, and another 2 million struggle with extreme and debilitating tinnitus. The condition seems to strike middle-aged people the most, but I have seen younger patients and even teenagers with tinnitus.

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Worldwide, more than 750 million people have tinnitus. Victor Habbick Visions/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

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The beauty of WhatsApp, along with other popular third-party chat apps, is that it allows you to message anyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re reaching out to friends, family, or new acquaintances, or if those people have an iPhone or Android. If they have a WhatsApp, they can chat. However, there is one person you haven’t been texting on WhatsApp that you probably should be: yourself.

If you’re coming from a platform like iMessage, the ability to message yourself might not seem novel. But on WhatsApp, it’s a brand new feature. In the past, the app offered no direct way to send a text to your own number. One workaround, though, was to start a group chat, then remove all other members, which would leave only yourself to your own thoughts.

But why bother texting yourself in the first place? This isn’t a hack for those of us with no one else to message. Instead, texting yourself can be a helpful replacement for a notes app: You can jot down ideas, interesting links you stumble upon, or any photos or videos you want to share. And because its WhatsApp, and not a random notes app, you could use this space to store content you want to share with other WhatsApp users down the line.

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(Image credit: Ben Fergusson)

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After a long weekend away, today let’s talk about the largely positive reception that Elon Musk’s radical remaking of Twitter is getting from tech CEOs — and whether those views are likely to change if the fight that Musk is picking with Apple erodes even more value from his $44 billion purchase.

The CEO’s revenge

Last week, Musk publicly mocked Twitter’s somewhat notorious “Stay Woke” T-shirts. The shirts, which the company produced in 2016 in response to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, were considered suspect even at the time. In those days, it was the left rolling its eyes — particularly after then-CEO Jack Dorsey wore the shirt during a Code Conference interview, giving the impression that a phrase that had originated within the Black community in response to systematic oppression had been co-opted by white corporate marketers.

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Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

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