Electric cars are more eco-friendly even in US, study finds
Paris, France -- Electric vehicles are less harmful to the environment than their petrol-guzzling counterparts even in the United States,...
Research
AI helps UK woman rediscover lost voice after 25 years
London, United Kingdom -- A British woman suffering from motor neuron disease who lost her ability to speak is once...
Science
Arts & Culture
Italian paper prints fully-AI edition, but not to ‘kill’ journalism
Rome, Italy -- In a world first, an Italian newspaper is printing a fully AI-generated edition for a month in...
- Il Foglio, a daily broadsheet with an irreverent touch and a circulation of about 29,000, says it is the first newspaper in the world to print entire editions created through AI.
- The newspaper's 20-odd journalists ask a version of ChatGPT to write a story on a specific subject in a specific tone, and it produces a text using information scraped off internet
Business
ADQ and US equity firm ECP to invest $25bn in data center energy projects
Dubai, UAE -- Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ has partnered with the American private equity firm Energy Capital Partners...
- Though the partnership’s primary focus will be the USA, a portion of the capital may also be allocated towards opportunities in selected other international markets.
- The combined initial capital contribution from the partners is expected to amount to $5 billion.
Geostrategy
Deepfakes can clone your voice in 5 seconds, tech firms mount defense
Las Vegas, United States -- Tech firms are fighting the scourge of deepfakes, those deceptively realistic voices or videos used...
- Hong Kong police recently revealed that a multinational firm employee was tricked into wiring $26m to crooks who staged a videoconference with AI avatars of his colleagues.
- A recent study by identification start-up iBoom found that a scant tenth of one percent of Americans and Britons were able to correctly tell when a picture or video was a deepfake.
Business
China’s Baidu releases new, free AI model to compete with DeepSeek
Baidu announced in a WeChat post that its latest X1 reasoning model -- which the company claims performs similarly to...
- Baidu also made the models free to use, more than two weeks ahead of schedule. Previously, users had to pay a monthly subscription to access the company's latest AI models.
- Technology companies in China have been scrambling to release improved AI platforms since start-up DeepSeek shocked its rivals with its open source and highly cost-efficient model
Interview
The future of logistics: Insights from DHL’s Amadou Diallo
The future of logistics is a convergence of technology, sustainability, and human ingenuity, which are transforming supply chains into more...
- in the MEA region, key hubs such as Doha, Dubai, Jeddah, Casablanca, Salalah, Nairobi, Durban, and Tema serve as vital nodes for regional distribution.
- Additionally, hubs like Istanbul, Dubai, and Addis Ababa improve connectivity within this region, said Diallo.
Interview
Electric, hybrid and aerial to entirely transform city life: IIT Madras expert
Easier commutes with faster, quieter, and eco-friendly vehicles would reduce travel times significantly and reduce stress for urban residents, says...
- Large and hugely populous Asian countries like India have abundant sunlight, making solar power a natural fit for supporting EV adoption.
- The ePlane Company’s air taxis will revolutionize urban transport by offering faster and more efficient ways to move within cities.
Economy
Smart cities lead GCC’s IoT boom: NEOM and Smart Dubai in focus
IoT applications are transforming critical sectors such as transportation, where connected vehicles improve traffic management, utilities where smart grids enhance...
- For instance, to manage the flow of massive stadium crowds during the FIFA World Cup, Qatar leveraged “digital twins,” aggregating data from 40,000 IoT devices.
- In a similar vein, Dubai’s Enterprise Command and Control Center uses a combination of AI, digital camera, and thermal imaging technologies to oversee 11,000 surveillance cameras.
Interview
Tech and sustainability drive Singapore’s smart tourism vision
To realize its vision for “smart tourism”, Singapore Tourism Board is leveraging cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, data analytics, and...
- STB’s Tcube, a hybrid innovation space launched in 2021, has helped tourism businesses introduce tech solutions, including Al, into their operations.
- More than 1,100 tourism companies have benefited from Tcube programs. Its Singapore Tourism Accelerator has supported 47 start-ups to develop 58 industry solutions across 6 cohorts
Interview
AI’s US$19.9tn contribution: Insights from Tealium on digital economy’s future
By 2030, every dollar spent on AI-powered solutions is expected to generate US$4.60 in economic value, according to global analyst...
- Scaling AI solutions across industries presents significant challenges, particularly around data quality and privacy, Coyne said.
- At Tealium, we take an active role in educating and empowering our customers to maximize AI’s potential while mitigating risks, he added.
Interview
GCC a key player in global freight and logistics industry, says Trukkin’s Dalmia
The region leverages a strategic major hub, advanced infrastructure, and economic diversification to fuel logistics demand, says Janardan Dalmia, Founder...
- The GCC Freight and Logistics market size is valued at US$76 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach US$110 billion by 2030.
- Governments in the GCC are also reducing bureaucracy, and spending money on improving the infrastructure, Dalmia said.
Electric cars are more eco-friendly even in US, study finds
Paris, France -- Electric vehicles are less harmful to the environment than their petrol-guzzling counterparts even in the United States,...
Research
Company News
Latest News
AI robots pluck weeds in California fields, make up for shortage of laborers
Los Banos, United States -- Oblivious to the punishing midday heat, a wheeled robot powered by the sun and infused...
Business
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...
Geostrategy
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...
Business
Most Read
Business
Indonesia begins $5.9 bn EV battery project despite environment fears
Jakarta, Indonesia -- Indonesia broke ground Sunday on a $5.9 billion megaproject for EV battery production backed by Chinese giant...
- Indonesia is the world's largest nickel producer and it is trying to capitalize on its vast reserves.
- The EV battery project will include a $4.7 billion investment on the eastern island of Halmahera and a $1.2 billion investment in West Java.
Research
AI is learning to lie, scheme, and threaten its creators
In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic's latest creation Claude 4 lashed back by blackmailing an...
- Meanwhile, ChatGPT-creator OpenAI's o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed.
- For now, this deceptive behavior only emerges when researchers deliberately stress-test the models with extreme scenarios.
Science
James Webb Telescope captures first direct image of exoplanet TWA 7b
The telescope, which can see farther into the universe than anything before it, has turbocharged the search for planets beyond...
- The discovery of exoplanet TWA 7b, revealed in a study in the journal Nature, "represents a first for the telescope", France's CNRS research center said in a statement.
- Most of the nearly 6,000 exoplanets found so far have been identified from the light they blot out when they pass in front of their star, rather than from direct images of planet.