Your LinkedIn contact could be a deepfake

Your contacts on the networking site LinkedIn could be deepfakes, according to a new study. Researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory found more than 1,000 deepfake accounts on LinkedIn, the social media platform for professional networking. The Times said the profiles are created by artificial intelligence software that has learnt, through viewing thousands of real faces, how to create convincing facial features.

Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster’s hat battle

The leader of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is campaigning hard on a key issue: the right to wear a pirate hat for a driver’s licence photo. Gary Smith, who identifies himself as a Pastafarian, insisted that his pirate hat is part of his church’s religious headwear. He has accused licensing authorities of “sheer arrogance” for blocking his request, reported Vancouver Island’s Times Colonist. According to followers, Pastafarianism is a “real, legitimate religion, as much as any other”.

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Message in bottle found after 56 years

A message in a bottle written by two teens looking for boyfriends has been found 56 years after it was released. The requests have been floating in the Humber Estuary for nearly six decades, after Jennifer Coleman and Janet Blankley wrote them aged 15 in August 1966. A mother and daughter spotted the bottle when they were litter-picking in Scunthorpe, said The Metro. They hope to reunite the notes with their authors.