Google Labs, the experimental arm of the tech giant, has introduced a new online project that offers an entertaining variation of the game of chess.

The web experiment is named GenChess, which, as the name implies, uses Gemini Imagen 3, Google’s image generation model, allowing players to customize their own chess pieces using text prompts.

To try the game, users must sign in with a Gmail account. Once logged in, they can select the “Generate” button and type in the desired theme for their chess set, such as one inspired by sushi or pizza. 

GenChess offers two styles: classic and creative. The classic version resembles a traditional chess set, while the creative version is more abstract. After the model generates a complete set, players have the option to edit individual pieces. For example, if the king doesn’t meet expectations, users can provide additional text prompts to refine its appearance.

Once players are satisfied with their customized chess set, they can generate an opponent to play against. In our testing, Google matched our sushi-themed set with a bot’s taco-inspired chess set. Players can choose between three difficulty settings (easy, medium, and hard) and two timer options (5/3 or 10/0).

Google’s latest web experiment is simple yet functional. A spokesperson told us it’s mainly designed to “show the collaboration between AI, design, and chess, making it possible for anyone to play with image generation,” they said. 

As part of the announcement for GenChess, Google revealed four additional chess-related initiatives coinciding with the kickoff of the World Chess Championship, which began on Monday. This includes Google’s partnership with the International Chess Federation (FIDE), which invites people to take part in a coding challenge to create AI chess engines on Kaggle, a Google-owned platform for data scientists and machine learning engineers.

Additionally, the Chess Gem game for Gemini will launch next month. This new conversational offering allows players to engage in chess games within the Gemini app, where they can test their skills against a language model and even engage in light-hearted banter. However, this feature will only be available to Gemini Advanced subscribers.

Museums around the UK will have the opportunity to display rare artefacts salvaged from protected wreck sites that have been saved from auction by the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust.

The trust, which works to ensure a sustainable future for underwater maritime heritage sites, struck a deal with the privately owned Charlestown Shipwreck & Treasure Museum to acquire the most important artefacts in its collection before they went to auction earlier this month.

It was announced in August that the museum building and its contents would be put up for sale by Smit Associates, a group of companies in Cornwall owned by the Eden Project co-founder Tim Smit. 

The collection of around 8,000 shipwreck and maritime artefacts was put together in the 1960s and early 1970s by the famous wreck diver Richard Larn. It has been described as “practically impossible to duplicate” following Unesco’s introduction of a ban on diving wrecks up to 200 miles offshore.

The planned sale led to fears in the heritage community that the unique collection would be dispersed and lost to the public.

On the eve of the sale, which took place on 6-7 November, the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust (Mast) reached an agreement with the museum to prevent 500 of the most significant artefacts in the collection from going to auction.

Salvaged from protected wreck sites, the 500 artefacts have been identified by Historic England as the largest and most important collection of objects from shipwrecks in the UK.

The material was retrieved from 12 Designated protected wrecks with the same status as the Mary Rose, including Royal Navy warships such as HMS Ramillies, HMS Association and English and Dutch East India Company wrecks.

Mast is planning local and national opportunities with museums around the UK to share and learn from the collection, which it says “not only tells the story of the development of maritime archaeology in the UK but also the history and archaeology of the Royal Navy and the development of international trade”.

The trust has been supported by the National Museum of the Royal Navy and Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust.

“I’m delighted and relieved in equal measure that Mast has been able to save this priceless collection that can tell countless stories of the history and archaeology of the Royal Navy and the development of global trade through the centuries,” said the trust's CEO Jessica Berry. 

“Mast has now taken the collection out of private ownership so its risk of being dispersed again has now gone forever.”

Smit said: “We, at the Shipwreck & Treasure Museum, are delighted that Mast is buying the artefacts from what are now protected wrecks, saving a unique collection for the nation. It is especially pleasing as Mast is made up of members who themselves have dedicated so much of their lives to exploring our underwater heritage.”

The remainder of the museum's collection went under the hammer earlier this month, attracting more than 2,000 bids from bidders all around the world. One model ship sold for £5,800, while a lump of coal salvaged from the Titanic fetched £1,800.

A spokesperson for Lay's Auctioneers, which undertook the sale, said: “Although controversial locally, the sale of the museum was a pragmatic decision by Tim Smit, its owner. It is a large damp, granite building and many of the most sensitive historic artefacts were deteriorating.

“Although the popular museum paid its way, it didn't generate the capital investment needed to refurb the building and purchase much-needed climate-controlled cabinets. Smit, a wreck diver himself, said it was always a priority to keep the collection together if he could.”

The museum building is being sold through SBC Property with an asking price of £1.5m.

Mast was founded as a charity in 2011 by the maritime archaeologist and author Jessica Berry, to protect maritime underwater cultural heritage through archaeology, research, study, dissemination and education.

On the day after Christmas in 1996, John and Patsy Ramsey woke up to discover their 6-year-old daughter, JonBenét, a child beauty queen, was missing from the family's Boulder, Colorado, home.

A handwritten ransom note demanding $118,000 — John's exact bonus that year — was found on the stairs by the kitchen. Seven hours later, John discovered his daughter's lifeless body in a small room in the basement.

For decades, the case has captivated the nation.

Now, 28 years later, John Ramsey remains hopeful that his daughter's killer will be caught. He believes new DNA technology could aid police in re-investigating JonBenét's murder, a case that drew global attention.

JonBenet's autopsy determined she had been sexually assaulted and strangled, and her skull was fractured. Unknown DNA was found under her fingernails and in her underwear.

The Ramseys quickly became suspects, even though no evidence connected them to the crime.

The Ramseys have consistently claimed they were not involved in JonBenet's murder. However, the Boulder District Attorney's Office took 12 years to fully exonerate the Ramseys and their son, Burke.

As the weeks passed without any arrests in the case, a media frenzy began to build, fueled by nonstop tabloid images of JonBenét competing in beauty pageants.

A number of suspects surfaced, including a man named John Mark Karr, who confessed to the killing in 2006. However, his DNA did not match the evidence, so he was never charged. The case remained open.

You can read more in the ABC News web site at: https://abcnews.go.com/US/jonbent-ramseys-father-advances-dna-technology-police-solve/story?id=116129328

Thanks to our spectacular partners at Queens University of Charlotte, DigitalNC is pleased to announce a brand new collection of scrapbooks, newspapers, and newsletters are now available online! The records stretch from as far back as 1921 to as recent as 2005, and encompass a vast experience of student life at one of Charlotte’s most historic campuses. Two hundred issues of student newspapers will join a pre-existing collection already hosted online at NC Digital, extending our digital coverage of the publication by almost a decade!

The newspaper, then known as the Queen’s Blues, span from 1920 to 1931, during the period when Queen’s University was a private Christian woman’s school. Both the paper’s articles and advertisements position themselves at this historic intersection, serving the needs of yesteryear’s college girl. Front-pages are often arranged in order to feature articles on Sunday seminars alongside opera reviews, and ads for charity-drives frequently feature alongside flash sales for the fanciest flapper fashions. A Queen’s girl is portrayed as both demure and mindful, but also modern and urbane. Of particular interest is the Queens Jester section on the back page of each issue, which includes a column of student-submitted jokes and humorous observations. While some may not have aged well, many still elicit a sensible chuckle. 

Issues of The Queen’s Chronicle are also included in this collection. These are fourteen issues of student newsletters published nearly eight decades after issues of Queens Blues. Ranging from 2002 to 2005, the pages of the newsletter reflect the similarities and differences of student life at Queens’ campus through the decades. Particularly noticeable is the addition of male students’ voices featured within the newsletters’ pages, as well as an increased focus on sports such as lacrosse, soccer, and basketball.

You can read issues of both The Queens’ Chronicle and Queens’ Blues, as well as five new scrapbooks, online now at DigitalNC. Interested in learning more about Queens University? You can find their partner page online at DigitalNC here, or navigate to the university’s website here. Thanks again to our amazing partners for making this collection possible.

From https://en.geneanet.org/genealogyblog/post/2024/11/this-week-help-us-index-the-us-navy-muster-rolls:

From November 26 – December 2, Geneanet is organizing a special week dedicated to the indexing of the US Navy’s Muster Rolls from the Civil War through the end of the century. Whether you are a frequent contributor to Geneanet’s indexing projects, or you haven’t used our indexing tools yet, discover this fascinating project with American but also British, Scottish, Irish, and Dutch sailors!

At Geneanet, there are hundreds of thousands of archival documents which aren’t indexed yet — in other words, names and dates haven’t been transcribed, so the images cannot be found through text search. Volunteer members use our task-sharing tools to make contributions large and small. If you have 15 minutes, or an hour or more, consider indexing a page or two, for the benefit of fellow genealogists!

The US Navy Muster Rolls collaborative project consists of transcribing the names of sailors, from high-resolution scans by the US National Archives (NARA) of detailed lists of sailors taken on ships in the US Navy from the Civil War period (1861-1865) through the last years of the 19th century. The rolls include Americans including African-Americans, but also English, Irish, Scottish, and even some Dutch sailors.

Our indexing tools simplify the task!

Again, you can read more at: https://en.geneanet.org/genealogyblog/post/2024/11/this-week-help-us-index-the-us-navy-muster-rolls

Microsoft Office consists of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Depending upon the version of Microsoft Office you purchase, it also might include OneNote, Outlook, Microsoft Publisher, or Skype. First launched in 1988, Microsoft Office has become the de facto word processing and office management software standard of the computer industry. Softpedia reported (at http://goo.gl/bGu7Dl) that Office is used by more than a billion people worldwide. As popular as the Microsoft Office suite has become, it still is not "the best" office suite of programs for everyone. In fact, Microsoft Office has some very good competitors.

Perhaps the biggest threat to Microsoft's dominance isn't pricing, however. I find that Microsoft Office is rapidly becoming obsolete. 

Microsoft Office has added many new features over the years, but its primary use hasn't changed much over the years. The computing world is changing rapidly, and yet Microsoft hasn't kept up.

Since its introduction in 1988, Microsoft Office has become bloated as more and more features were added by various teams of programmers. It also has become slower, despite the fact that today's computers are much, much faster than those of 36 years ago. Perhaps the biggest drawback, however, is the price. Unlike most other computer software, Microsoft Office remains as a very expensive product. The lowest-priced version, Microsoft Office Home & Student, sells for $99.99 on Amazon while Office Professional sells for much more with the price varying from one retailer to the next. If you shop around, you can find discounts from those prices; but the bottom-line price will still be much higher than any of several excellent alternative programs.

I used Microsoft Office for years and even paid for upgrades every time a new version was released. I eventually discovered free and open source software that did most of the same functions as Microsoft Office. The free programs have matured over the years and are now easy to install, easier to use than the Microsoft product, and generally faster in operation. My current favorite is LibreOffice (http://www.libreoffice.org/) although Apache OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/) is also an excellent choice. Both are available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. 

That being said, I am now using the Windows and Macintosh versions of Microsoft Office alternatives less and less.

A few million people, myself included, have found that tablet computers provide much of the functionality of desktop and laptop computers, but they are far more convenient to use. These are excellent devices for reading and writing email messages, surfing the web, and reading ebooks, wherever you are. 

While prices vary, many of today's tablet computers also cost much less than their desktop and laptop cousins. When tablet computers first appeared, they were low-powered devices with limited capabilities. However, that has changed over the years, and today's $300 to $500 tablet computers perform many of the functions of much more expensive computers. Even better, the mobile tablet is easily carried most anywhere and is available whenever its owner wishes.

Office suites for mobile devices—such as tablets—have been available for several years although the early versions had limited functionality. They could display most Microsoft Word documents or perhaps even Excel documents, but they weren't good at creating or editing such documents. They were useful primarily as file viewers.

The mobile office suites kept adding new features, however. Within a very few years, these programs became powerful—nearly as powerful as Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, or OpenOffice. For many people, a tablet computer with a mobile office suite can perform all the functions they need. The price of these mobile office suites? Always much cheaper than Microsoft Office. Some of the better ones are even available free of charge.

When someone now sends me an email message with an attached file, I can read the email message on a tablet computer or even on a "smartphone," then tap on the attached file link, and the document appears on my screen. The result is a bit difficult to read on a tiny cell phone screen but works well on a tablet's larger display. In fact, with today's full-sized tablet computer, reading a document or spreadsheet on the tablet is as easy as reading the same thing on a desktop computer's screen. It doesn't take long to realize you have little use for the bulky desktop computer. Even the three to six-pound laptop that requires a long time to boot up is becoming less and less attractive.

A few years ago, tablets and cell phones could only be used to read documents. However, today's office software allows the user to create new documents as well as to edit existing ones. With the addition of a keyboard, a one or two-pound tablet computer becomes a great tool for the (mobile) office. I take mine to libraries and archives to take notes and to transcribe documents as needed.

NOTE: The obvious big disadvantage to tablet computers are the on-screen "keyboards." Some of them are difficult to type on. Luckily, a number of vendors sell Bluetooth keyboards that are as useful as keyboards found on laptops. I use an external keyboard that is the same size as my favorite tablet computer, and it easily slides into a carrying case that I purchased. The combination of tablet computer, keyboard, and carrying case easily slips into a briefcase, purse, or even an overcoat pocket. This combination has become my preferred "traveling computer."

Based on the history of other Microsoft products, I suspect there are several things we can expect for the next version of Microsoft Office: the new software will be bloated, slow, and more difficult to use than competitive products. I will read the product announcement and early reviews closely to see if my guess is correct. I would love to try Office for iPad on someone else's tablet. However, I doubt if I will ever purchase my own copy.

I haven't tried all the available Office-compatible products for tablet computers and cell phones. However, of the several I did try, I prefer Liberoffice. It doesn't do everything that Microsoft Office can do; but, in the few months I have been using Libreoffice, it has done everything I have needed. I have not yet seen a need to go back to Microsoft Office or any of its laptop or desktop competitors. Libreoffice can work with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. It reads and writes .DOC, .DOCX, and several other file formats.Libreoffice also includes a rather good spell checker and most other expected features. 

I also have installed Libreoffice on my cell phone. I find the tiny screen and lack of a real keyboard make it difficult to create new documents. I certainly would not want to write "the great American novel" on the cell phone! However, it works well for reading documents and for making (brief) edits.

Best of all, Libreoffice for Android and Apple's iOS mobile computers is available free of charge. Google Docs will save files directly to Google Drive and can also save files via a two-step process to Dropbox and to most other cloud storage services. As a result, anything you create or edit in Google Docs is immediately available to your other computers as well as to anyone else you allow to share documents with you.

Google Docs was originally created by an independent company that was later acquired by Google. The new owners have improved the original product significantly, added new functionality, and integrated it with Google's other products. All this was done without adding significant bloat or slowing down the original product.

There is no "pro" version or any other enticement to spend money. The free version of Google Docs. Libreoffice, and most of the other “clones” contains everything. 

It will be interesting to watch the upcoming battle between Microsoft Office and Google Docs. The history of computers has shown that power and capabilities keep expanding as the hardware keeps shrinking in size. Prices also keep dropping. In battles like these, consumers are the ones who benefit.

This article was written in Libreoffice on an iPad, using an external keyboard.

Read all about it at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2024/11/black-friday-starts-now-get-myheritage-dna-kits-for-the-lowest-price-ever/. 

The RNLI is partnering with Ancestry to celebrate 200 years of saving lives at sea by making thousands of the charity’s historic records accessible to the public for free*.

Ancestry’s partnership with the RNLI will see two centuries of RNLI records digitised and hosted on Ancestry.co.uk for the first time, streamlining a process that previously required manually searching through two hundred years of physical documents. The public will now have access to browse the online archive of records and discover if the RNLI has changed the course of their own family history.

John May, 66 years of age, followed in the footsteps of his grandfather when he became RNLI crew at Fraserburgh. John idolised his grandfather, John Downie May, who was coxswain at Fraserburgh RNLI and helped with countless life-saving missions as part of the charity.

John May, commented:

‘Being able to explore the records of my grandfather is invaluable. It is amazing to see records of his time in the RNLI and see the footsteps he laid out before me. I am so proud to follow his journey with the RNLI, knowing that my grandfather, father and I shared the same passion for the sea.’

From crew cards of RNLI crew, records of rescues, to records of volunteer awards and gallantry medals given for brave acts of courage, these valuable records can help people to unlock unknown parts of their history, with the documents dating and locating family members of the past, and in some instances providing imagery too.

Simon Pearce, Family History Expert at Ancestry said:

'We are thrilled to celebrate the RNLI's 200th anniversary by digitising its invaluable records. This project not only honours the charity’s rich history but also makes these important resources freely accessible to everyone, allowing families and researchers to connect with their maritime heritage like never before.'

David Welton, Heritage Manager at RNLI, said:

'We are very excited to be making parts of our extensive archive collection available to the public for the very first time. Opening access will mean many will discover their family connection to the RNLI and explore records of their ancestors in our collection. We are grateful to Ancestry for allowing us to make this happen and for it to be in our 200th year of lifesaving makes it even more special.'

Key facts about the RNLI

The RNLI charity saves lives at sea. Its volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland coasts. The RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations in the UK and Ireland and more than 240 lifeguard units on beaches around the UK and Channel Islands. The RNLI is independent of Coastguard and government and depends on voluntary donations and legacies to maintain its rescue service. Since the RNLI was founded in 1824, its lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved over 146,000 lives.

Learn more about the RNLI

For more information please visit the RNLI website or Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. News releases, videos and photos are available on the News Centre.

Contacting the RNLI - public enquiries

Members of the public may contact the RNLI on 0300 300 9990 (UK) or 1800 991802 (Ireland) or by email.

A man who passed a polygraph test over the 1979 murder of a 17-year-old girl in California has now been identified as her suspected killer.

On Wednesday, Nov. 20, the Riverside County District Attorney’s (DA) Office confirmed in a release that Lewis Randolph “Randy” Williamson had been identified as teenager Esther Gonzalez's rapist and killer more than 45 years after her body was found dumped in a snowpack off Highway 243 near Banning on Feb. 10, 1979. She was killed the previous day, per the release.

"Authorities determined she had been raped and bludgeoned to death," the DA's office said in the statement, adding that "forensic genealogy" had helped them confirm the identify of the suspect decades after the killing.

The release stated that the victim had been murdered while "walking from her parents’ house in Beaumont to her sister’s house in Banning."

RIVERSIDE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

"Esther’s body was found after an unidentified man, described by deputies as argumentative, called the Riverside County Sheriff’s Station in Banning to report finding a body, saying he didn’t know if it was a male or female," authorities said.

"Five days later, sheriff’s investigators were able to identify the caller as Lewis Randolph 'Randy' Williamson and asked him to take a polygraph. He agreed and passed which, at the time, cleared him of any wrongdoing," they added.

Through the years, investigators have continued to work on the case, and "eventually uploaded a semen sample from the crime scene into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS)," the DA's office said.

"In 2023, members of the cold case homicide team sent various items of evidence to Othram, Inc. in Texas, initiating a Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy investigation, in hopes of developing additional leads," authorities continued in the release. 

"Earlier this year, a crime analyst assigned to the cold case team determined that, although Williamson was seemingly cleared by the polygraph in 1979, he was never cleared through DNA because the technology had not yet been developed," the DA's office added.

Williamson died in 2014 and a blood sample was collected during his autopsy. 

"With the assistance of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, the sample was sent to the California Department of Justice (DOJ). DOJ recently confirmed that Williamson’s DNA matches the DNA recovered from Esther’s body," the release concluded.

The investigation continues, and the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team is now seeking information from anyone who knew the suspect.