Sci-Tech

Blue Origin returns to space after year-long hiatus

By Issam AHMED Blue Origin launched its first rocket in more than a year on Tuesday, reviving the US company’s fortunes with a successful return to space following an uncrewed crash in 2022. Though mission NS-24 carried a payload of science experiments, not people, it paves the way for Jeff Bezos’ aerospace enterprise to resume taking wealthy thrill-seekers to the final frontier. The New Shepard suborbital rocket blasted off from the pad at Launch Site […]

Meta accused of mishandling Israel-Hamas war posts

NEW YORK, Dec 19, 2023 (AFP) – Meta’s independent oversight board on Tuesday criticized the social media titan of removing posts that showed human suffering in the Middle East conflict. The board, set up by Meta in 2020 as a supreme court of sorts for the social media titan, overturned two post removal decisions, and urged the company to respond more quickly to changing circumstances in the war between Hamas and Israel. One case involved […]

The feline frontier: NASA sends cat video from deep space

By Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, Dec 18, 2023 (AFP) – NASA on Monday announced it had used a state-of-the-art laser communication system on a spaceship 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away from Earth — to send a high-definition cat video. The 15-second meow-vie featuring an orange tabby named Taters is the first to be streamed from deep space, and demonstrates it’s possible to transmit the higher-data-rate communications needed to support complex missions such as sending […]

EU launches ‘illegal content’ probe into Elon Musk’s X

BRUSSELS, Dec 18, 2023 (AFP) – The EU on Monday announced “formal infringement proceedings” against Elon Musk’s X platform under a law cracking down on illegal online content, after identifying disinformation related to Hamas’s October 7 attack in Israel. The action against the company formerly known as Twitter is the first against a major online platform since Brussels implemented the Digital Services Act (DSA), a sweeping piece of European Union legislation that strengthens online companies’ […]

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin headed back into space after accident

By Lucie AUBOURG WASHINGTON, Dec 18, 2023 (AFP) – The American company Blue Origin plans to launch its rocket Big Shepard Monday for the first time since an accident more than a year ago, as the firm founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos heads back into space. The launch window from the pad in west Texas opens at 8:30 am local time (14H30 GMT), said Blue Origin, which plans to live stream the event. This mission […]

Meta rolls out Twitter rival Threads in the EU

By Raziye Akkoc BRUSSELS, Dec 14, 2023 (AFP) – Facebook owner Meta’s text-based app Threads arrived in the European Union on Thursday, months after its global launch in July, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. Threads is a spin-off of the Instagram photo app and is intended to be a rival to X, formerly known as Twitter, after that platform alienated many users and advertisers following Elon Musk’s purchase last year. “Today we’re opening Threads to […]

US identifies use of AI as risk in financial system

WASHINGTON, Dec 14, 2023 (AFP) – US regulators have identified the use of artificial intelligence as a vulnerability in the financial system for the first time, according to a report released on Thursday. There is a need to monitor “rapid developments in AI, including generative AI, to ensure that oversight structures keep up with or stay ahead of emerging risks to the financial system,” said the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) in its annual report. […]

OpenAI to pay Axel Springer to use journalism in ChatGPT

Axel Springer said Wednesday it was partnering up with the maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI, which will pay the German media group to include its journalism in responses generated by the chatbot. “ChatGPT users around the world will receive summaries of selected global news content from Axel Springer’s media brands,” which include news site Politico and German tabloid Bild, the two companies said in a statement. The chatbot’s answers would include material otherwise kept behind a […]

EU negotiators reach agreement on groundbreaking AI act

By Raziye Akkoc BRUSSELS, Dec 8, 2023 (AFP) – EU member states and lawmakers clinched a deal on Friday on how to draft “historic” rules regulating artificial intelligence models such as ChatGPT — after 36 hours of negotiations. Meeting in Brussels, negotiators nailed down curbs on how AI can be used in Europe, which they said would not hurt innovation in the sector nor the prospects for future European AI champions. “Historic! With the political […]

Google looks to take generative AI lead with Gemini

By Glenn CHAPMAN Google on Wednesday infused its Bard chatbot with a new-generation artificial intelligence model called Gemini, which it touts as being able to reason better than ChatGPT and other rivals. The search engine juggernaut is aiming to take the generative AI lead from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI as that company deals with the aftermath of a boardroom coup that saw chief executive Sam Altman fired and then rehired within a matter of days. Google has […]

Nissan hit by ‘cyber incident’ in Australia, New Zealand

WELLINGTON, Dec 7, 2023 (AFP) – Japanese car giant Nissan warned customers Thursday that its operations in Australia and New Zealand had been hit by a “cyber incident”. Nissan said it had notified the national cyber security centres in both countries, while the company’s global response team assessed the scale of the attack. It was unclear whether any personal information had been accessed, the company said in a statement. “While the extent of the incident […]

Twitch to shut down in SKorea over ‘seriously’ high fees

SEOUL, Dec 6, 2023 (AFP) – US-based live gaming streaming platform Twitch said Wednesday that it would stop its service in South Korea in February because of “seriously” high network costs. In a statement signed by CEO Dan Clancy, the Amazon-owned company said it had reached a stage where continued operation in the country had become “impossible”. It blamed Seoul’s network usage fees for the decision, saying costs were “10 times higher compared to the […]