Science and technology

Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering at now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has agreed to plead guilty to U.S. fraud charges, his lawyer said in court on Tuesday, as U.S. prosecutors ramp up their investigation into members of Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle. Singh has agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on FTX customers, and one count of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, his lawyer said at the hearing in Manhattan federal court. Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder, was charged in December with eight counts of fraud and conspiracy. Prosecutors say he stole billions in FTX customer deposits to plug losses at his hedge fund Alameda Research, and lied to investors and lenders about his companies’ financial condition. He has pleaded not guilty. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have repeatedly urged people with knowledge of wrongdoing at FTX to come forward. Singh’s plea is set to come after two of Bankman-Fr

Microsoft on Tuesday started adding its recently upgraded Bing search engine to its Windows computer software, aiming to put artificial intelligence (AI) at the fingertips of hundreds of millions of people. The Windows 11 update, Microsoft’s latest in a flurry of product revamps this month, shows how the Redmond, Washington-based software maker is marching ahead on AI notwithstanding recent scrutiny of its technology. Microsoft’s operating system will include the new Bing in desktop computers’ search box, which helps half a billion monthly users navigate their files and the internet, the company said. The search engine itself is still in a preview mode, accessible to more than 1 million people in 169 countries with a wait list for others, Microsoft said. The company  unveiled its AI-powered chatbot for Bing as it aims to wrest market share from Alphabet’s Google, moving faster with ChatGPT-like software for search. Microsoft has been gathering feedback on the new Bing before a wi

Reports of more layoffs at Twitter landed on Monday as owner Elon Musk waded into a racism controversy that risked pushing advertisers further away from the struggling platform. Musk called US media “racist” on Sunday after multiple American newspapers announced they would stop publishing a popular comic strip whose creator called Black people a hate group. Musk, chief of electric car company Tesla and Twitter, made his comment in regard to backlash to a rant by Scott Adams, creator of the long-running “Dilbert” comic strip — a satirical take on office life. Adams, like Musk, has increasingly stoked controversy with his views on social issues. “For a ‘very’ long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians,” Musk wrote in a post on Twitter, where he has reinstated thousands of users banned for hate speech. “Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist.” Under Musk’

Snap said on Monday it is rolling out ‘My AI’, an experimental chatbot feature running on OpenAI’s GPT technology for some users of its photo messaging app Snapchat. “Today we’re launching My AI, a new chatbot running the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology that we’ve customized for Snapchat. My AI is available as an experimental feature for Snapchat+ subscribers, rolling out this week,” Snap said in a statement. Snap said that ‘My AI’ can recommend birthday gift ideas for your BFF, plan a hiking trip for a long weekend, suggest a recipe for dinner, or even write a haiku about cheese for your cheddar-obsessed pal. You can also make it your own by giving it a name and customizing the wallpaper for your Chat. As with all AI-powered chatbots, it is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. All conversations with My AI will be stored and may be reviewed to improve the product experience. Snap also advised Snapchat users to not to share any secre

Nokia announced plans on Sunday to change its brand identity for the first time in nearly 60 years, complete with a new logo, as the telecom equipment maker focuses on aggressive growth.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Nokia (@nokia) The new logo comprises five different shapes forming the word NOKIA. The iconic blue color of the old logo has been dropped for a range of colours depending on the use. “There was the association to smartphones and nowadays we are a business technology company,” Chief Executive Pekka Lundmark told Reuters in an interview. He was speaking ahead of a business update by the company on the eve of the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) which opens in Barcelona on Monday and runs until March 2. After taking over the top job at the struggling Finnish company in 2020, Lundmark set out a  strategy  with three stages: reset, accelerate and scale. With the reset stage now complete, Lundmark said the seco

The Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST) has launched the high-speed Internet service, covering 21 villages and immigration in different regions of Saudi Arabia. This comes as an extension of the local roaming service initiative, as CST said that the high-speed Internet service aims to ensure the continuity of telecommunications services to more than 5 million people. The service also enables people to benefit from the Internet network which covers the area despite of the service provider. It also supports service providers to reach the largest number of users. Moreover, it will raise the service’ quality, improve the user experience, as well as empower the digital transformation. CST said that the service will enable the users to change their network to another service provider, with a free of fees, if there was no coverage for the main service provider. This will include all voice services, high-speed Internet services, and short message service (SMS). It is n

Elon Musk’s Twitter Inc laid off dozens of employees on Saturday in what is at least the eighth round of job cuts since Musk took over the social network in late October, the Information reported. The job cuts impacted multiple engineering teams, including those supporting advertising technology, the main Twitter app as well as technical infrastructure to keep Twitter’s systems up and running, the report in the U.S. technology focused publication said early on Sunday, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter. Twitter did not immediately respond to Reuters request for a comment. In  early  November, Twitter laid off about 3,700 employees in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, who acquired the company for $44 billion. The Information reported that the latest job cuts aim to offset a plunge in revenue following Musk’s takeover and further whittle down a staff that had shrunk by at least 70% to roughly 2,000. Musk in November said that the service was experiencing a “massive dro

TAIPEI: The US-led “Fab 4” semiconductor alliance of Taiwan, the United States, Japan and South Korea held its first video meeting of senior officials last week focused on supply chain resilience, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday. The United States last September convened the first meeting of the working group, colloquially called “Fab 4” or “Chip 4”, to discuss how to strengthen the semiconductor supply chain, after a global chip crunch caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The semiconductor shortage, which forced some carmakers to halt production, thrust chip powerhouse Taiwan into the spotlight and has made supply chain management a bigger priority for governments around the world. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said the “US-East Asia Semiconductor Supply Chain Resilience Working Group”, or “Fab 4”, had after many months of coordination held the first video meeting of senior officials from its working group on Feb. 16. “The focus of the discussions of the participating quartet

A push by Group of 20 (G20) president India to regulate cryptocurrencies gained support from both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United States on Saturday as finance chiefs of the bloc wrap up two-days of talks. India has said it wants a collective global effort to deal with problems posed by cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, and the finance ministry said it had held a  seminar  for G20 member states to discuss how to come up with a common framework. Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bengaluru, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said it was “critical” to put in place a strong regulatory framework but added that the United States had not suggested any outright bans. “We haven’t suggested outright banning of crypto activities, but it is critical to put in place a strong regulatory framework,” Yellen said. “We’re working with other governments.” Earlier, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters after co-chairing a meeting wit

Facebook-owner Meta on Friday unveiled its own version of the artificial intelligence behind apps such as ChatGPT, saying it would give access to researchers to find fixes to the technology’s potential dangers. Meta described its own AI, called LLaMA, as a “smaller, more performant” model designed to “help researchers advance their work,” in what could be seen as veiled criticism of Microsoft’s decision to release the technology widely, while keeping the programming code secret. Microsoft-backed ChatGPT has taken the world by storm with its ability to generate finely crafted texts such as essays or poems in just seconds using technology known as large language models (or LLM). LLM is part of a field known as generative AI that also includes the capacity to execute images, designs or programming code almost instantaneously upon a simple request. Usually the more staid actor in big tech, Microsoft has deepened its partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and earlier this mon

Telecom equipment maker Ericsson will lay off 8,500 employees globally as part of its plan to cut costs, a memo sent to employees and seen by Reuters said. While technology companies such as Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet have laid off thousands of employees citing economic conditions, Ericsson’s move would be the largest layoff to hit the telecoms industry. “The way headcount reductions will be managed will differ depending on local country practice,” Chief Executive Borje Ekholm wrote in the memo. “In several countries the headcount reductions have already been communicated this week,” he said. On Monday, the company, which employs more than 105,000 worldwide,  announced  plans to cut about 1,400 jobs in Sweden. While Ericsson did not disclose which geography would be most affected, analysts had predicted that North America would likely be most affected and growing markets such as India the least. The company said in  December  it would cut costs by 9 billion crowns ($880 millio

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s telecom sector is facing a severe financial crisis as the per-user revenue has hit the world’s lowest at $0.80, ARY News reported, citing sources.  This alarming number has caused distress among telecom operators in Pakistan. The sources within the industry said it will be difficult for the telecom operators to continue services, due to the devaluation of the Pakistani rupee as compared to the dollar. With all costs in dollars, the decline in revenue has made it difficult for mobile operators to stay afloat, as the revenue per user needs to rise above $1.5 to remain active. Read more: NEPRA rejects to revise power tariff for telecom companies The telecom sector has also expressed its deep concerns to the Minister of Information Technology, Ameenul Haq. Rising interest rates, fuel, and electricity prices have also made the cost of doing business skyrocket, putting immense pressure on the already struggling industry. The financial crisis has led to LC closure

As the artificial intelligence boom takes off, Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) is expected to emerge as the biggest – though not the only – winner among chipmakers after years of focusing on the technology has made it a go-to supplier for tech firms. AI has emerged as a bright spot for investments in the tech industry, whose slowing growth has led to widespread layoffs and a cutback on experimental bets. The surge in interest helped Nvidia report better-than-expected quarterly earnings on Wednesday and its forecast sales above beat Wall Street expectations, in stark contrast to a projected loss and dividend cut from rival Intel Corp. Nvidia shares rose nearly 14% to $236.70 on Thursday. They have jumped more than 60% since the turn of the year, nearly three times the gain in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (.SOX). The company got its start in the graphics chip business for PCs by helping video games look more realistic, and then rode the cryptocurrency wave as its chips were used for m

Amazon.com said on Wednesday it had completed its $3.5 billion takeover of primary care provider One Medical, a day after a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) official announced that the agency would not challenge the deal. The acquisition, announced last July, gives the online retailer a virtual health offering as well as offices for in-person medical services for the first time. It reflects Amazon’s long-held ambition to greatly simplify how consumers navigate healthcare in the United States, a lofty goal it has yet to realize even as the company has rolled out a virtual pharmacy and other programs. In a statement, Amazon’s Chief Executive Andy Jassy said the deal would help the company improve, speed up and personalize care for patients. “If you fast forward 10 years from now, people are not going to believe how primary care was administered,” he said. Amazon shares rose 2% in morning trade. The company also announced it would discount One Medical membership to $144 from $199

Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot Bing threatens to expose users’ personal information and their reputation to the public. There have been several controversies surfing on the internet regarding the user’s experience with Microsoft’s chatbot, Bing and these revelations have raised serious concerns about the future of Artificial intelligence’s future. One of the users shared his conversation with the AI chatbot Bing online, he said that he was threatened by Bing when he had a conversation with the Chatbot. When he asked the Chatbot what does the chatbot know about him. The chatbot answered in detail about him. Later in the conversation, the chatbot threatened to expose his personal information to the public and ruin his chance to get a job or degree. from Science and Technology News - Latest science and technology news https://ift.tt/6gIEfWB

The Meta-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp has added the new picture-in-picture for video calls in the latest update on iOS. This new feature which was first tested last year will allow iOS users to open up other apps during video calls without any disruptions.  After this update, WhatsApp will now allow iOS users to shrink their video call to a small window so they can switch to whatever app they want. You can read different documents, surf the web, or perhaps even play a game while staying on the video call. This new feature of WhatsApp will roll out over the coming weeks and the same goes for the other features as well in the updated version.  from Science and Technology News - Latest science and technology news https://ift.tt/qeoPaW2

Until recently, Brett Schickler never imagined he could be a published author, though he had dreamed about it. But after learning about the ChatGPT artificial intelligence program , Schickler figured an opportunity had landed in his lap. “The idea of writing a book finally seemed possible,” said Schickler, a salesman in Rochester, New York. “I thought ‘I can do this.'” Using the AI software, which can generate blocks of text from simple prompts, Schickler created a 30-page illustrated children’s e-book in a matter of hours, offering it for sale in January through Amazon.com’s self-publishing unit. In the edition, Sammy the Squirrel, crudely rendered also using AI, learns from his forest friends about saving money after happening upon a gold coin. He crafts an acorn-shaped piggy bank, invests in an acorn trading business and hopes to one day buy an acorn grinding stone. Sammy becomes the wealthiest squirrel in the forest, the envy of his friends and “the forest started prosperi

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Monday called for using digital technologies to improve the health and well-being of the people of Pakistan and provide them with quality healthcare services. He emphasised that advances in medical technology could help transform the country’s medicine and healthcare system. President Dr Arif Alvi expressed these views while talking to Chief Executive Officer of Pakistan and Afghanistan Siemens Healthineers, Khurram Jameel, who called on him here at Aiwan-e-Sadr, a press release issued by the President’s Media Wing said. Khurram Jameel briefed President Alvi that Siemens Healthineers was one of the leading healthcare solution providers in Pakistan and its mission was to transform healthcare delivery and improve patient experience through digitalization. Talking to the CEO, President Alvi emphasised that Pakistani healthcare providers needed to embrace innovation and transform healthcare delivery to successfully meet the challenges in the health

Telecoms gear maker Ericsson plans to cut about 1,400 jobs in Sweden as part of a broader plan to reduce costs globally, it said on Monday. The company had earlier  announced plans  to cut costs by 9 billion crowns ($880 million) by the end of 2023 as demand slows in some markets, including North America. Further job cuts, numbering several thousands in other countries, are likely to be announced in the coming days, said two sources close to the matter. Ericsson last made deep cuts in 2017 when it laid off thousands of employees and focused on research to pull the company out of losses. The company was negotiating with its employee union in Sweden for months on how to handle cost cuts. Agreement has now been reached with Swedish unions on how to manage headcount reductions, a spokesperson said, adding that the company intends to make the cuts through a voluntary programme. from Science and Technology News - Latest science and technology news https://ift.tt/y95riWh

CALIFORNIA: Facebook and Instagram owner Meta will launch a paid subscription service starting at $11.99 a month allowing users to verify their accounts, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Sunday, following a similar move by Elon Musk at Twitter. Meta Verified, which will roll out first in Australia and New Zealand this week, will let users verify an “account with a government ID, get a blue badge, get extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you, and get direct access to customer support,” Zuckerberg said. “This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services,” he wrote in a statement posted to his Facebook account. There would be no changes to accounts on Facebook and Instagram that are already verified, the company said, adding that only users who are over the age of 18 will be allowed to subscribe. The service is not yet available to businesses. It was not immediately clear how Zuckerberg planned to price Meta Verified in countrie

Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) has urged Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) investors to vote for its director nominees and the pay packages for top executives, including Chief Executive Tim Cook. Apple will hold its annual shareholder meeting on March 10. The ISS stance, published in a research note on Friday, comes after the iPhone maker had slashed Cook’s 2023 compensation target by more than 40% to $49 million. Cook’s salary will also depend more on how well the company’s shares perform relative to market peers, according to regulatory filings by the company. “Continued monitoring of the pay program is warranted to ensure that pay magnitude is supported by continued strong performance by the company,” ISS said in a note. The proxy advisory firm also recommended investors vote for proposals including a resolution demanding a report on median gender and racial pay gaps, and an amendment of proxy access right, both of which were opposed by the company’s management

The global buzz around Microsoft chatbot  ChatGPT has spread to China , shoring up stocks in artificial intelligence (AI) related firms and prompting a flurry of local companies to announce rival projects. Like Microsoft and Google，Chinese tech giants such as Baidu and Alibaba as well as smaller start-ups have been working on AI projects for years. Chatbots in China mostly focus on social interactions whereas ChatGPT, which learns from vast amounts of data how to answer prompts by users in a human-like manner, performs better at more professional tasks, such as programming and essay writing. Here is a list of Chinese tech companies that have recently made announcements on AI technology: BAIDU Baidu said on Feb. 7 it would complete internal testing of a ChatGPT-style project called “Ernie Bot”  in March. ALIBABA Alibaba Group on Feb. 8 said it is developing a ChatGPT-style tool currently  in internal testing . The e-commerce giant said large language models and generative AI hav