New wave: Sea power turned into energy at Los Angeles port
San Pedro, United States -- Floating blue paddles dance on the waves that lap a dock in the Port of Los...
Science
Musk’s megarocket faces crucial new test after failures
Washington, United States -- Elon Musk's SpaceX is gearing up for the next test of its Starship megarocket on Sunday,...
Geostrategy
Business
Global tax plans targeting super rich and tech giants stall under Trump
Paris, France -- Global tax plans targeting billionaires and multinational companies are running aground, with the United States torpedoing reforms...
- Countries have accused Amazon, Microsoft, Google owner Alphabet and Facebook's parent company Meta of sidestepping local taxes.
- Trump issued a warning on February 21 to countries that would hit big tech and other US companies with fines or taxes that are "discriminatory, disproportionate".
Business
Meta to start using Europeans’ data for AI training May 27
Paris, France -- Meta will start using public posts and comments by its European users to train generative artificial intelligence...
- Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, said earlier it would develop its AI models with European users' public content and conversations with the Meta AI chatbot.
- That means anything from Instagram photo captions to Facebook comments could soon be fair game for Meta AI, though private conversations via WhatsApp will be excluded.
Business
Denmark’s Royal Unibrew adds AI colleagues into workforce
Fakse, Denmark -- They have names, faces and email addresses, but the five new colleagues at Denmark's Royal Unibrew only...
- Royal Unibrew in Denmark has introduced five virtual AI colleagues with names and backstories to assist human employees with routine tasks and information retrieval.
- The company reports increased engagement since adding photos to the AI agents, and employees interact with them through chats and emails for enhanced efficiency.
Business
US exempts several consumer electronics from Trump’s import tariffs
Washington, United States -- The Trump administration has exempted a raft of consumer electronics from its punishing import tariffs --...
- US Customs and Border Protection office said smartphones, laptops, memory chips and other products would be excluded from the global levies President Donald Trump rolled out a week
- The exemptions will benefit US tech companies like Nvidia and Dell, as well as Apple, which makes iPhones and other premium products in China.
Geostrategy
After Instagram restrictions, Meta to introduce teen accounts for Facebook
Paris, France -- Meta on Tuesday announced that it was extending its teen accounts to its social network Facebook, after...
- The accounts were brought in for 13- to 15-year-old Instagram users last September as part of moves to shield underage internet users from online harms.
- Teens are immediately placed in such accounts, with those under 16 unable to change settings without parental permission.
Interview
UAE’s steady economic rise fertile ground for growth of facilities management
A steady stream of development projects and year-round tourism in the country propel demand for tech-enabled facilities management, says Adnan...
- In a market like the UAE, or the GCC in general, where things evolve daily, adaptation is essential, said Jabri.
- Our industry is increasingly focused on sustainability, and technology plays a pivotal role in enabling environmentally friendly practices, he added.
Geostrategy
First orbital rocket launched from Europe crashes seconds after blast-off
Oslo, Norway -- The first orbital rocket launched from continental Europe crashed seconds after blast-off Sunday, in a closely watched...
- Isar Aerospace, which had said it did not expect to reach orbit with the launch, said the two-stage rocket fell into the sea, adding that "the launch pad seems to be intact".
- The 28-metre (92-foot) tall, two-meter diameter rocket has a one-ton carrying capacity, but was unloaded for the test flight.
Business
‘Something is rotten’: Apple’s AI strategy faces doubts
New York, United States - Has Apple, the biggest company in the world, bungled its generative artificial intelligence strategy? Doubts...
- Doubts arose when tech analyst John Gruber criticized Apple in a blog titled "Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino."
- The analyst admitted frustration for not questioning Apple's Siri genAI upgrade announced last June
Science
Firms and researchers at odds over superhuman AI
The belief that human-or-better intelligence -- often called "artificial general intelligence" (AGI) -- will emerge from current machine-learning techniques fuels...
- "Systems that start to point to AGI are coming into view," OpenAI chief Sam Altman wrote in a blog post last month.
- Such predictions help justify the hundreds of billions of dollars being poured into computing hardware and the energy supplies to run it.
Business
Does ‘vibe coding’ make everyone a programmer?
New York, United States -- Can a complete tech novice create a website using everyday language on ChatGPT? That's the...
- The ChatGPT and Claude interfaces can write an entire program line by line on demand, as can Gemini, which launched its dedicated version, Gemini Canvas.
- Other generative AI platforms specifically dedicated to coding have also made their mark in recent months, from Cursor to Loveable, or Bolt, Replit and Windsurf.
New wave: Sea power turned into energy at Los Angeles port
San Pedro, United States -- Floating blue paddles dance on the waves that lap a dock in the Port of Los...
Science
Company News
Latest News
Russia publishes rare footage of largest drone factory
Moscow, Russia -- Russia has showcased what it calls the biggest drone factory in the world, broadcasting rare footage from...
Geostrategy
AI needs to be smaller, reduce energy footprint: UNESCO study
Paris, France -- The potential of artificial intelligence is immense -- but its equally vast energy consumption needs curbing, with...
Geostrategy
Use of eco-friendly rice bricks surges in water-scarce Kyrgyzstan
Rice blocks require less cement, which is responsible for approximately eight percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to 2023...
Geostrategy
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Geostrategy
Japan plans ‘world first’ deep-sea mineral extraction from Jan
Tokyo, Japan -- Japan will from January attempt to extract rare earth minerals from the ocean floor in the deepest...
- Earlier this week the country pledged to work with the United States, India and Australia to ensure a stable supply of critical minerals.
- Rare earths -- 17 metals difficult to extract from the Earth's crust -- are used in everything from electric vehicles to hard drives, wind turbines and missiles.
Business
Microsoft laying off several thousand employees
San Francisco, United States -- Microsoft on Wednesday said it was slashing a little less than four percent of its...
- The cloud computing tech giant did not disclose the total amount of lost jobs but as of June 2024 it employed 228,000 people, bringing the latest layoffs to about 9,000 people.
- The job cuts follow a round in May that saw about 6,000 positions culled from its global workforce.
Science
‘Writing is thinking’: do students who use ChatGPT learn less?
Paris, France -- When Jocelyn Leitzinger had her university students write about times in their lives they had witnessed discrimination,...
- The ChatGPT users scored significantly worse than the brain-only group on all levels. The EEG showed that different areas of their brains connected to each other less often.
- And more than 80 percent of the ChatGPT group could not quote anything from the essay they had just written, compared to around 10 percent of the other two groups.