Science and technology

Microsoft will unbundle its chat and video app Teams from its Office product and make it easier for rival products to work with its software, the U.S. company said on Thursday in a move aimed at staving off a possible EU antitrust fine. The proposed changes came a month after the European Commission launched an investigation into Microsoft’s tying of Office and Teams following a complaint by Salesforce-owned workspace messaging app Slack in 2020. Microsoft’s preliminary concessions failed to address concerns. The EU competition enforcer on Thursday said it took note of the company’s announcement and declined further comment. Teams was added to Office 365 in 2017 for free. It eventually replaced Skype for Business and gained in popularity during the pandemic due in part to its video conferencing. “Today we are announcing proactive changes that we hope will start to address these concerns in a meaningful way, even while the European Commission’s investigation continues and we cooper

China’s Baidu rolled out its ChatGPT rival ERNIE Bot to the public on Thursday, in a major leap for the country’s tech sector as it aims to cash in on the artificial intelligence gold rush. The Chinese government introduced fresh regulations this month for AI developers, aiming to allow them to stay in the race with the likes of ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Microsoft while tightly controlling information online. ERNIE Bot is the first domestic AI app to be fully available to the public in China. It is not available outside the country. “We are thrilled to share that ERNIE Bot is now fully open to the general public starting August 31,” Baidu said in a statement on Thursday. “In addition to ERNIE Bot, Baidu is set to launch a suite of new AI-native apps that allow users to fully experience the four core abilities of generative AI: understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory.” The chatbot was released in March but its availability was limited. By making it widely available, Baidu

The iPhone 15 Pro Max is expected to become Apple’s best-selling smartphone, with a groundbreaking periscope lens rumored to offer impressive optical zoom, potentially 5X-10X, predicted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. iPhone 15 series to be launched on September 12 at Apple’s September 12 event. To recall, the standard iPhone 15 models are anticipated to receive upgrades like a USB Type-C port and Dynamic Island. In contrast, the iPhone 15 Pro Max (or iPhone 15 Ultra) may feature a game-changing addition that could position it as Apple’s top-selling model. In a post by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on Medium (via 9to5Mac), it is suggested that the device could make up 35-40 per cent of Apple’s shipments upon launch, potentially becoming their top-selling model. The report also notes a 10 per cent increase in estimated shipments for the iPhone 15 Pro compared to the iPhone 14 Pro Max, largely attributed to the anticipated inclusion of a periscope lens, exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The upcom

Britain’s state-run national health service (NHS) will be the first in the world to offer Atezolizumab, an injection that treats cancer, to hundreds of patients in England which could cut treatment times by up to three quarters. Following approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), NHS England said on Tuesday hundreds of eligible patients treated with the immunotherapy, atezolizumab, were set to have “under the skin” injection, which will free up more time for cancer teams. “This approval will not only allow us to deliver convenient and faster care for our patients, but will enable our teams to treat more patients throughout the day,” Dr Alexander Martin, a consultant oncologist at West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust said. NHS England said atezolizumab, also known as Tecentriq, is usually given to patients intravenously, directly into their veins via a drip, which could often take around 30 minutes or up to an hour for some patients when it can be di

Wednesday night skies will feature a ‘Blue Moon’ and the event is made even more fascinating by the phenomenon of the supermoon, which causes the moon to appear slightly larger and brighter than usual. Moreover, the event is made even more special with the Moon close approaching the planet Saturn. A supermoon occurs when the Moon is both full and at or near its closest point to Earth, according to NASA, which happens just three or four times a year—but if one month sees two full moons, the second is called a blue moon, making two supermoons in one month a “super blue moon.” The super blue moon may not look too much bigger than normal as the difference between a normal Moon and a supermoon is usually similar to the difference between a quarter and a nickel, though NASA says it should be brighter. When and how to watch the Blue Moon? The blue moon will reach its peak brightness at 12:00 pm Wednesday (ET), and its zenith will be later at 10:00pm (ET). To get the perfect sight of th

Apple said on Tuesday it would host its fall event on Sept. 12, setting the stage for what analysts believe will be the unveiling of a new line of iPhones and smartwatches. The event will be hosted at the Steve Jobs Theater at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, according to invites from the world’s most valuable company. Wall Street analysts have said Apple will try to entice shoppers with a range of new features for its flagship device, as the launch comes against the backdrop of a slump in smartphone demand globally. Apple posted a 2.4% decline in iPhone sales for its fiscal third quarter – a rare drop for the product that has for years powered the company’s growth. The most expensive variant of the new generation iPhone will have a periscope camera that could improve zoom capacity by 5 times or more, according TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The expected watch lineup may feature a new processor based on Apple’s A15 Bionic chip, already used in previou

We’ve managed to accumulate so much plastic trash that it’s daunting to think about what could be done with the tons upon tons of nonbiodegradable waste. And as much as we are trying to scale back our dependence on single-use plastics, we continue to add to the global plastic trash hoard. Events like the COVID-19 pandemic only served to expand their use for personal protective equipment and disposable and take-away packaging. But, for researchers at UC Santa Barbara, one person’s single-use packaging is another person’s useful raw material. In a paper published in the journal Chem , they have reimagined the value of single-use plastics, with improvements to an innovative process that can turn polyolefins, the most common type of polymer in single-use packaging, into valuable alkylaromatics — molecules that underlie surfactants, the active components of detergents and other useful chemicals. “If we make these surfactants from fossil fuels now and you could make them from waste plasti

An Australian scientist detailed on Tuesday a world-first discovery after an 8-cm (3-inch) -long parasitic worm was found in the brain of a woman in Canberra, spotlighting the risks of infectious organisms jumping between species. Identified by scientists as a roundworm most commonly seen in carpet pythons, it was discovered last year in a 64-year-old undergoing surgery in the Australian capital, following complaints of abdominal pain, forgetfulness and depression. A study of the case published on Monday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases suggested she may have been exposed through foraging for wild grasses that could have been contaminated with python faeces. “When you operate on someone’s brain and you take a biopsy of something, you never expect to encounter something living,” Dr Sanjaya Senanayake, one of the study’s authors, told Reuters. While scientists are familiar with parasites in humans, a worm so large had never before been seen in a human, he added. “(It) w

The social media application recently stopped functioning for many users bringing the activities of thousands of users to a standstill. These outages are especially causing a stir among the users of X (formerly known as Twitter) after Elon Musk bought the app and began transforming it from the inside out. Here’s everything you need to know about the recent Twitter outage. Is X (former Twitter) down? The former Bluebird app stopped working for its users as they have reported having trouble accessing their profiles from the website (Desktop app). According to the reports of Downdetector, the outage began on August 28, at 7:05 PM ET when over 9000 users complained about having trouble viewing Tweets from their desktop and laptop. The users saw the message ‘Something went wrong. Try reloading again.‘ They refreshed the website and checked their internet and WiFi connections but the outage persisted for hours. This outage peaked at around 7:15 PM ET when over 14,000 users reported f

In one of the startling discoveries it has been pointed out that water did not actually originate on Earth but was brought down to it by meteorites. It is a stunning discovery belying almost all factors concerned with water, the vital prerequisite for life on Earth. Its presence on earth was a given as it was  considered one of the aftereffects of the Ice Age. It was considered an essential ingredient of the growth of life on Earth without which life may not have originated. This discovery has proved the earlier assumption wrong but it also opened up many new avenues for research that may open up many other possibilities. The new study reveals that water was actually brought to the Earth two million years after its formation by angrites in the early years of the formation of the Solar System. Angrites are known to be a rare group of water-rich basaltic meteorites found in outer regions of the universe. A fresh look at the rare basaltic angrites suggests that volatiles which are e

TOKYO: Japan’s space agency suspended a planned launch on Monday of an H-IIA rocket that was to carry a moon lander into space, according to operator Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). The launch was cancelled because of unsuitable wind conditions in the upper atmosphere, MHI’s launch services unit said in a post on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, 24 minutes before the planned launch time. The H-IIA No. 47 rocket was to be launched from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)’s Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan at 9:26 a.m. local time (0026 GMT) on Monday. MHI will provide further details, JAXA said during its YouTube livestream. The rocket is carrying JAXA’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), which would be the first Japanese spacecraft to land on the moon. Tokyo-based startup ispace’s (9348.T) lunar lander Hakuto-R Mission 1 failed in April. JAXA was planning to start SLIM’s moon landing in January-February 2024 after Monday’s launch, aiming

A handwritten advertisement by Apple founder Steve Jobs for the Apple-1 Computer was recently sold for an impressive $175,759 (approximately Rs5.3 crore), as per Boston-based RR Auction. The ad gives an insight into the early days of Apple and the visionary mind and entrepreneurial foresight of Steve Jobs, who sparked a technological revolution. The handwritten advertisement sheet, acquired by the consignor during a visit to Steve Jobs’ garage in the same year, bears Jobs’ full signature in lowercase print, “steven jobs.” It features contact information, including his parents’ home address and phone number—historically, the original headquarters of the Apple Computer Company. The document outlined the technical details of the Apple-1 – a computer ahead of its time. Steve Jobs’ handwritten note describes the computer’s features, including power supplies, 8K bytes of RAM, an entire CRT terminal with keyboard input, composite video output, and expandability up to 65K via an edge co

NASA and SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft blasted off on Saturday carrying four astronauts to the International Space Station. The Crew-7 mission is commanded by American Jasmin Moghbeli and includes Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, Satoshi Furukawa of Japan and Konstantin Borisov of Russia. The Dragon spacecraft carried by a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 3:27 am (0727 GMT) from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ,  in front of around 10,000 people gathered to watch the launch. “We have liftoff!” NASA said on X, formerly known as Twitter. Cheers could be heard in the mission control room soon after the Dragon craft separated from the Falcon 9 rocket with the crew in orbit. “We may have four crew members on board from four different nations… but we’re a united team with a common mission,” Moghbeli said after the separation. The launch was pushed back to Saturday to give engineers an extra day to review a component of the Crew Dragon capsule’s environmental control

Just weeks after adding support for HD photos, Meta’s messaging app WhatsApp now allows users to send videos in HD resolution. The company has rolled out HD video support to both iOS and Android users. Similar to the HD photos feature, the HD videos feature gives customers the choice to share high-def videos across WhatsApp. Previously, HD videos would have been compressed to 480p, now, users can opt to send their video in HD, but only up to 720p. The process here is the same as for sharing HD photos. After selecting the video or videos you want to share, you’ll tap the new HD button on the top of the screen. A dialogue box will appear where you can confirm if you want to share in Standard Quality or HD Quality and will show the associated file sizes. You then press send to share the video as usual. Images and videos shared on WhatsApp are protected with the company’s end-to-end encryption. According to Meta, the feature is rolling out now so if you don’t have it yet, you shou

After the success of India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, while celebrations are taking place in one neighboring country, Pakistan, on the other hand, has many people wondering: When will Pakistan finally conclude its space experiment? In the last few days, an image from 1962 has resurfaced on social media, depicting the Pakistani scientist conducting the country’s inaugural space experiment involving the rocket named ‘Rehbar 1’. In June 1962, Pakistan achieved the distinction of being the third Asian country, following Japan and Israel, to successfully launch a rocket named Rehbar-1. In this regard, we spoke to Dr. Mohammad Jawed Iqbal, the Director of the Institute of Space Science and Technology Program at the University of Karachi. Dr. Iqbal, an expert in space technology, shed light on the challenges faced by the Pakistani space program. He explained that while Pakistan’s space agency, SUPARCO, collaborates with China for satellite development, certain critical aspects of roc

The world’s major tech titans must crack down on illegal content and keep European users safe online from Friday, when far-reaching EU rules force digital firms to fall into line. The landmark Digital Services Act (DSA) compels tech companies to better police content to protect European users against disinformation and hate speech. And it also demands the firms are more transparent about their services, algorithms and how ads are targeted. The first phase of the regulation came into force on Friday, affecting 19 “very large” digital platforms including social media networks, websites and online retailers with at least 45 million monthly active users in the European Union. They are: Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, Google’s Maps, Play, and Shopping, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter (rebranded as X), Wikipedia, YouTube and Zalando as well as Bing and Google Search. Many inside and outside of the EU hope

On the heels of the success of the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing, India’s space agency has set a date for its next mission – this time to study the sun. The Aditya-L1, India’s first space observatory for solar research, is getting ready for launch at the country’s main spaceport in Sriharikota, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told reporters at its satellite command centre this week, as scientists and crew celebrated the moon mission’s success. “We are planning to launch in the first week of September,” said ISRO chairman S. Somanath. WHAT WILL ADITYA-L1 DO? Named after the Hindi word for the sun, the spacecraft is India’s first space-based solar probe. It aims to study solar winds, which can cause disturbance on earth and are commonly seen as “auroras”. Longer term, data from the mission could help better understand the sun’s impact on earth’s climate patterns. Recently, researchers said the European Space Agency/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft had detected numerous rel

Chinese designer and manufacturer of consumer electronics – Xiaomi – to expand its product lineup around software, announced to create its own Operating System (OS). According to the latest reports, the Chinese tech giant – Xiaomi is developing its own operating system that is compatible with AOSP (Android Open Source Project). The new operating system by Xiaomi could be used on a variety of devices, including tablets, smartphones, and wearables. Notably, this new operating system will be fully compatible with the Android Open Source Project. This suggests that the operating system could be expanded beyond smartphones and may even be adapted for electronic vehicles and other products. It is pertinent to mention here that Xiaomi isn’t the sole Chinese smartphone company making its own operating system It is pertinent to mention here that, before Xiaomi, Huawei was the first Chinese phone company making its own operating system. Observers suggest Xiaomi will initially introduce it

Former President Donald Trump returned to the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, with a post on Thursday showing his mug shot from his booking at Fulton County Jail in Georgia earlier in the day. With his post appealing for donations, Trump reclaimed direct access to the public on the platform that banned him following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his supporters. On Nov. 19 the San Francisco-based app reversed its position under billionaire Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” who bought Twitter on Oct. 2. Trump, who had over 88 million followers when Twitter banned him, posted a photo on Thursday of the mug shot with the words: “ELECTION INTERFERENCE! NEVER SURRENDER!” The post garnered more than 14 million views 50 minutes after going live. Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s account in January 2021, citing the risk of further incitement of violence following the storming of the U.S. Capitol. He used Twitter and other social media pl

Mutations in the KRAS gene are the major driver of pancreatic cancer. The resulting protein controls multiple signaling pathways involved in cell growth and survival. In cancer, the gene is mutated to be permanently “on,” driving cells to excessively multiply and form tumors. New drugs have recently been developed to inhibit KRAS and appear to be therapeutically promising. However, pancreatic cancer is especially prone to drug resistance. Most drugs only work for a short period of time before the cancer finds its way around them. Previous experiments revealed a potential reason why: a group of genes upstream of KRAS, called ERBB, appears to become upregulated in response to KRAS inhibition. In other words, when KRAS goes down, ERBB goes up and drives KRAS and other related genes back up again. To try to beat this potential source of drug resistance, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine tested a novel combination of KRAS and ERBB drug inhibitors. The

YouTube has announced an exciting new experiment that’s sure to strike a chord with music enthusiasts. The Google-owned platform has unveiled a new experiment on Android devices that determines a song via humming — which seems like a major step up from Apple’s music recognition app Shazam. The company shared the news on its ‘YouTube test features and experiments’ page on Tuesday. How it will work? Participants in this experimental phase can switch from the regular voice search to the innovative song search feature. Users have to hum, sing or record a song for three or more seconds. The platform then identifies the tune and directs the user to relevant YouTube videos featuring the searched song, whether that be the official music video, user-generated content or Shorts. While this whimsical feature is still in its early stages, it’s already tickling the fancy of Android users across the globe. A select group of fortunate individuals are getting to witness this symphonic experime

Nvidia’s (NVDA.O) CEO Jensen Huang said he expects the artificial intelligence boom will last well into next year and made what could be the largest single bet yet in the tech sector to back up his optimism. The company’s sales forecast on Wednesday blew past Wall Street’s expectations and it said it would buy back another $25 billion of its shares, a move most companies make when their leadership thinks the company is undervalued. Nvidia’s stock price, though, has more than tripled this year and was set to hit an all-time high after Wednesday’s results. Nvidia said it plans to ramp up production of its hardware into next year, quashing doubts that a few analysts had raised about how long the AI craze could last. The company has a near-monopoly on the computing systems used to power services like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s blockbuster generative AI chatbot. “We have excellent visibility through the year and into next year, and we’re already planning the next generation infrastructure with l

The South Korean tech giant Samsung is targeting Apple users with a unique update to its Try Galaxy app, enabling iPhone users to simulate the experience of using a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold by placing two iPhones side by side. The feature is available on Android phones too, but Samsung just expanded the Try Galaxy app to work on iPhones. The update comes after Samsung launched its latest foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5, at a high-profile event in Seoul last month. Using the app on your iPhone involves scanning a QR code from Samsung, which is available in the company’s press release. Doing so will allow you to add a shortcut to Samsung’s Try Galaxy app to an iPhone’s home screen. Launching the shortcut pulls up a simulation of Samsung’s One UI Android software. But those who have two iPhones handy can use them together to imitate how the software would look on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold. There are a couple of short demos available to try in this mode, such as a