Latest news with #Zhang
HKFP
an hour ago
- HKFP
HKUST student denied bail after allegedly posing as anti-graft agency officer, defrauding victim of HK$278K
A PhD student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has been denied bail after allegedly posing as an anti-corruption investigator and attempting to defraud a victim of HK$278,000. The defendant, surnamed Zhang, appeared at the Eastern Magistrates' Court on Thursday to face a charge of conspiring to defraud. According to the charge sheet cited by local media outlets, he is accused of conspiring to defraud a man in Sai Ying Pun on May 29. Zhang allegedly posed as an officer from the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in an attempt to scam the person out of HK$278,000. According to a media briefing on Wednesday, police arrested Zhang, a 22-year-old student from mainland China, as well as an 18-year-old Form Six student and a 23-year-old woman, on Tuesday. Police were alerted to the cases after receiving reports from four scam victims between March and May. The victims received phone calls from the suspects claiming they were involved in crimes in mainland China, police said. The suspects then showed up at the victims' homes and presented an 'arrest order' as well as fake warrant cards and court papers, saying they needed to pay a refundable investigation fee, police added. The four victims were defrauded of around HK$980,000 in total and only realised something was amiss when they could not reach the callers again. The court denied Zhang bail and remanded him in custody on Thursday, local media reported. The case was adjourned to August 13, but he will appear in court on Tuesday to apply for bail.
NDTV
2 hours ago
- NDTV
Google's AI Chatbot Panics When Playing Video Game Meant For Children
Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots might be smart, but they still sweat bullets while playing video games that seemingly young kids are able to ace. A new Google DeepMind report has found that its Gemini 2.5 Pro resorts to panic when playing Pokemon, especially when one of the fictional characters is close to death, causing the AI's performance to experience qualitative degradation in the model's reasoning capability. Google highlighted a case study from a Twitch channel named Gemini_Plays_Pokemon, where Joel Zhang, an engineer unaffiliated with the tech company, plays Pokemon Blue using Gemini. During the two playthroughs, the Gemini team at DeepMind observed an interesting phenomenon they describe as 'Agent Panic'. "Over the course of the playthrough, Gemini 2.5 Pro gets into various situations which cause the model to simulate "panic". For example, when the Pokemon in the party's health or power points are low, the model's thoughts repeatedly reiterate the need to heal the party immediately or escape the current dungeon," the report highlighted. "This behavior has occurred in enough separate instances that the members of the Twitch chat have actively noticed when it is occurring," the report says. While AI models are trained on copious amounts of data and do not think or experience emotions like humans, their actions mimic the way in which a person might make poor, hasty decisions when under stress. In the first playthrough, the AI agent took 813 hours to finish the game. After some tweaking by Mr Zhang, the AG agent shaved some hundreds of hours and finished the game in 406.5 hours. While the progress was impressive, the AI agent was still not good at playing Pokémon. It took Gemini hundreds of hours to reason through a game that a child could complete in significantly less time. The chatbot displayed erratic behaviour despite Gemini 2.5 Pro being Google's most intelligent thinking model that exhibits strong reasoning and codebase-level understanding, whilst producing interactive web applications. Social media reacts Reacting to Gemini's panicky nature, social media users said such games could be the benchmark for the real thinking skills of the AI tools. "If you read its thoughts when reasoning it seems to panic just about any time you word something slightly off," said one user, while another added: "LLANXIETY." A third commented: "I'm starting to think the 'Pokemon index' might be one of our best indicators of AGI. Our best AIs still struggling with a child's game is one of the best indicators we have of how far we still have yet to go. And how far we've come." Earlier this month, Apple released a new study, claiming that most reasoning models do not reason at all, albeit they simply memorise patterns really well. However, when questions are altered or the complexity is increased, they collapse altogether.
Calgary Herald
15 hours ago
- Sport
- Calgary Herald
What's Calgary's connection to U.S. football's East-West Shrine Game?
Article content And Devin Zhang intends to run through them in Great Falls, Montana. Article content Article content But one Calgarian won't be doing it for the other because the two young football talents actually line up on different sides of the 2025 Montana East-West Shrine Game. Article content It's Aherne with the East facing Zhang and the West in the annual star-studded showcase of high-school seniors featuring the two Calgarians among the best of Montana athletes. Article content Article content 'I expect some pretty good football,' said Zhang, a running back/receiver with the Notre Dame Pride of Saturday's all-star game at Memorial Stadium in Great Falls (7 p..m.). Article content Article content 'I've been to Montana a couple times and those guys? They're big, they're fast and they can play football really well. And I'm just excited as a Canadian to go down and to show them how Canadians could play football because we could play just as well as they can.' Article content Aherne accepts the challenge, as well, as a strong offensive lineman — at guard or tackle — representing Henry Wise Wood Warriors. Article content 'It's a different breed of football down there,' Aherne declared. 'So I'm excited to go down and test out my chops and see if I can make a statement. I want to try to show them that Canadian football is serious football and it's not a joke and that we can there at the same level as them. Article content Article content 'I'm excited to go down, have some fun, make new friends and make new relationships, but I want to compete. It's going to be tough, but I'm ready for it.' Article content The Montana East-West Shrine Game is one of the oldest high school all-star football games in the United States. Article content Every year since 1947, the finest players of Montana high schools are selected to compete in a game to raise money and to help make the public aware of the expert orthopedic and burn care available at the Shriners Children's hospital in Spokane, Wash. Article content A pair of Calgary footballers annually get the invite to join in the event, with the backing of the Greater Calgary Amateur Football Association and the local Shriners chapter from the Al Azhar Shriners of Southern Alberta.
New Straits Times
a day ago
- Sport
- New Straits Times
'Moving Great Wall': China unleash towering teen basketball star
BEIJING: China look set to unleash their 2.26m (7ft 5in) "moving Great Wall" at the Women's Asia Cup after teenager Zhang Ziyu put in another towering display days after her debut. The 18-year-old centre scored 18 points as China beat great rivals Japan 101-92 on Wednesday in Xi'an in a warm-up for the regional tournament next month on home soil. It was her third appearance for the senior Chinese squad, having helped them to blowout victories over Bosnia and Herzegovina over the weekend. Chinese state media dubbed her and gangly centre Han Xu the "Twin Towers." Zhang's looming presence on court – footage showed her barely needing to jump to make a basket – seemed to stump Japan head coach Corey Gaines. Asked if he had figured out a way "to deal" with the teenager, the American ex-NBA guard told reporters: "We'll just say: Interesting. Very interesting." Zhang hails from northern China's Shandong province and had reached 2.10m by the end of primary school. She has been likened by Chinese fans to Houston Rockets great Yao Ming. Yao, who at 2.29m was one of the tallest NBA players in history, was known as the "moving Great Wall" before retiring from basketball in 2011 and Zhang has now taken on the nickname. Both of Zhang's parents played professional basketball. Her father, Zhang Lei, turned out for the Chinese Basketball Association's Jinan Military Region while her mother Yu Ying played as a centre for Shandong, according to local media. The teenager may have a distinct height advantage but she has been told she needs to sharpen up. Experienced centre Yang Liwei said after Wednesday's win that Zhang "could have been tougher on some shots." "I think she played at her normal level," added Yang, who helped China win the Asian title in 2023. China meet Japan again tomorrow at home for another warm-up. Both will play at the Women's Asia Cup in Shenzhen from July 13. - AFP
The Sun
a day ago
- Sport
- The Sun
‘Moving Great Wall': China unleash towering teen basketball star
CHINA look set to unleash their 2.26m (7ft 5in) 'moving Great Wall' at the Women's Asia Cup after teenager Zhang Ziyu put in another towering display days after her debut. The 18-year-old centre scored 18 points as China beat great rivals Japan 101-92 on Wednesday in Xi'an in a warm-up for the regional tournament next month on home soil. It was her third appearance for the senior Chinese squad, having helped them to blowout victories over Bosnia and Herzegovina over the weekend. Chinese state media dubbed her and gangly centre Han Xu the 'Twin Towers'. Zhang's looming presence on court -- footage showed her barely needing to jump to make a basket -- seemed to stump Japan head coach Corey Gaines. Asked if he had figured out a way 'to deal' with the teenager, the American ex-NBA guard told reporters: 'We'll just say: Interesting. Very interesting.' Zhang hails from northern China's Shandong province and had reached 2.10m by the end of primary school. She has been likened by Chinese fans to Houston Rockets great Yao Ming. Yao, who at 2.29m was one of the tallest NBA players in history, was known as the 'moving Great Wall' before retiring from basketball in 2011 and Zhang has now taken on the nickname. Both of Zhang's parents played professional basketball. Her father, Zhang Lei, turned out for the Chinese Basketball Association's Jinan Military Region while her mother Yu Ying played as a centre for Shandong, according to local media. The teenager may have a distinct height advantage but she has been told she needs to sharpen up. Experienced centre Yang Liwei said after Wednesday's win that Zhang 'could have been tougher on some shots'. 'I think she played at her normal level,' added Yang, who helped China win the Asian title in 2023. China meet Japan again on Friday at home for another warm-up. Both will play at the Women's Asia Cup in Shenzhen from July 13.
