Technologies

Want to Speak to Dolphins? Researchers Won $100,000 AI Prize Studying Their Whistling

The scientists studied a bottlenose dolphin community in Sarasota, Florida, uncovering evidence of language-like communications.

If any dolphins are reading this: hello!

A team of scientists studying a community of Florida dolphins has been awarded the first $100,000 Coller Dolittle Challenge prize, set up to award research in interspecies communication algorithms.

The US-based team, led by Laela Sayigh of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, found that a type of whistle that dolphins employ is used as an alarm. Another whistle they studied is used by dolphins to respond to unexpected or unfamiliar situations. The team used non-invasive hydrophones to perform the research, which provides evidence that dolphins may be using whistles like words, shared with multiple members of their communities.

Capturing the sounds is just the beginning. Researchers will use AI to continue deciphering the whistles to try to find more patterns.

«The main thing stopping us cracking the code of animal communication is a lack of data. Think of the 1 trillion words needed to train a large language model like ChatGPT. We don’t have anything like this for other animals,» said Jonathan Birch, a professor at the London School of Economics and Politics and one of the judges for the prize.

«That’s why we need programs like the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, which has built up an extraordinary library of dolphin whistles over 40 years. The cumulative result of all that work is that Laela Sayigh and her team can now use deep learning to analyse the whistles and perhaps, one day, crack the code,» he said.

The award was part of a ceremony honoring the work of four teams from across the world. In addition to the dolphin project, researchers studied ways in which nightingales, marmoset monkeys and cuttlefish communicate.

The challenge is a collaboration between the Jeremy Coller Foundation and Tel Aviv University. Submissions for next year open up in August.

Dolphins are just the beginning

Researching animals and trying to learn the secrets of their communication is nothing new; but AI is speeding up the creation of larger and lager datasets.

«Breakthroughs are inevitable,» says Kate Zacarian, CEO and co-founder of Earth Species Project, a California-based nonprofit that also works in breaking down language barriers with the animal world.

«Just as AI has revolutionized the fields of medicine and material science, we see a similar opportunity to bring those advances to the study of animal communication and empower researchers in this space with entirely new capabilities,» Zacarian said.

Zacarian applauded Sayigh’s team and their win and said it will help bring broader recognition to the study of non-human animal communication. It could also bring more attention to ways that AI can change the nature of this type of research.
«The AI systems aren’t just faster — they allow for entirely new types of inquiry,» she said. «We’re moving from decoding isolated signals to exploring communication as a rich, dynamic, and structure phenomenon — whish is a task that’s simply too big for our human brains, but possible for large-scale AI models.»

Earth Species recently released an open-source large audio language model for analyzing animal sounds called NatureLM-audio. The organization is currently working with biologists and ethologists to study species including carrion crows, orcas, jumping spiders and others and plans to release some of their findings later this year, Zacarian said.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Jan. 23

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Jan. 23.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Hope you’re familiar with a certain blond actor (8-Across)! Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Attach, as one plant to another
Answer: GRAFT

6A clue: Email button with a backward-facing arrow
Answer: REPLY

7A clue: Make very excited
Answer: AMPUP

8A clue: Two-time Best Actor nominee Nick
Answer: NOLTE

9A clue: Total dork
Answer: DWEEB

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Word that can precede piano, total or staircase
Answer: GRAND

2D clue: Cut again, as a lawn
Answer: REMOW

3D clue: Company whose logo has a bite taken out of it
Answer: APPLE

4D clue: Champagne glass
Answer: FLUTE

5D clue: Laid-back kind of personality
Answer: TYPEB

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Technologies

‘Is Microsoft Down?’ Outlook and Teams Go Dark in Widespread Outage

It’s not just you: Numerous Microsoft services weren’t working most of Thursday, and the outage is continuing.

Thursday has been a tough work day for many — or maybe, a great one, depending on how eager you are to access work-related programs. Microsoft services, including Outlook, Teams and Microsoft 365 are experiencing a significant outage that’s still going on as of early evening, Pacific time. Microsoft hasn’t announced an expected time when everything will be back up and running.

You can follow the official Microsoft 365 Status account on the social-media platform X, which has been regularly posting updates about the outage.

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The first post there, from 11:37 a.m. PT, said that the company was «investigating a potential issue impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview. Further information can be found in the admin center under MO1221364.»

The admin center is the dashboard for IT admins managing Microsoft 365 services.

You can also monitor Microsoft’s Service Health Status page. That page is noting that «users may be seeing degraded service functionality or be unable to access multiple Microsoft 365 services.»

A representative for Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Technologies

Ring’s Latest Feature Lets You Verify Shared Security Videos

With so many fake videos out there, the home-security company is adding a level of protection.

Popular home security brand Ring announced that videos shared from its devices can now be verified, so customers know they’re watching an authentic, unaltered video. Ring says the new verification process is similar to a security seal on a package or medicine bottle, indicating that no one has tampered with it.

The new feature is available starting Thursday, and it doesn’t matter which Ring device recorded the video. All videos downloaded directly from the Ring app are automatically verified and include a security seal for authenticity.

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When someone sends you a Ring video, you can now visit Ring’s verification page, paste the video link, and determine immediately whether the video is verified. The website doesn’t send your video anywhere. It stays locally on your device, and all verification checks happen within your browser. The verification website only accepts MP4 files, the format Ring videos are saved.

Videos downloaded before December 2025 or edited videos cannot be verified. Ring says that even minor adjustments, such as shaving a couple of seconds off the beginning or end of a video, or even adjusting brightness levels, will render it unverifiable.