Science and technology

The president of tech giant Microsoft said there is no chance of super-intelligent artificial intelligence being created within the next 12 months and cautioned that the technology could be decades away. OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman earlier this month was removed as CEO by the company’s board of directors but was swiftly reinstated after a weekend of outcry from employees and shareholders. Reuters last week exclusively reported that the ouster came shortly after researchers had contacted the board, warning of a dangerous discovery they feared could have unintended consequences. The internal project named Q* (pronounced Q-Star) could be a breakthrough in the startup’s search for what’s known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one source told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks. However, Microsoft President Brad Smith, speaking to reporters in Britain on Thursday, rejected claims of a dangerous breakthrough.

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Dr Umar Saif said on Wednesday that providing quality telecom services to the masses was the government’s top priority, ARY News reported. “The government is taking all possible steps to improve connectivity in the country,” he said during a meeting with the Group Chief Executive Officer of VEON, along with CEO Jazz, Aamir Ibrahim. Matters of mutual interest related to the telecom sector were also discussed during the meeting, said a news release. During discussions with the VEON delegation, Dr Umar Saif mentioned that the tech-neutral spectrum would be auctioned soon to enhance telecom services for the public. Vowing to launch 5G, he expressed that the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication would provide every possible cooperation to the telecom industry. Smart mobile phones would be provided in easy installments soon, he added. Dr Umar Saif informed the delegation that Pakistan has a conducive investment atmospher

Huawei’s new smart car software and components firm is set for a valuation of up to 250 billion yuan ($34.67 billion) after it sells stakes to investors including Changan Auto, three people with knowledge of the matter said. The Chinese company said on Sunday it will spin off its four-year-old Intelligent Automotive Solution (IAS) business unit – which aimed to become the equivalent of German automotive supplier Bosch of the intelligent electric vehicle (EV) era – into a new company which will receive the unit’s core technologies and resources. Main auto partner Chongqing Changan Automobile and relevant parties will own up to 40% of the new firm, a Changan Auto statement showed on Sunday. Neither Changan Auto nor Huawei disclosed financial details. Changan Auto and its ultimate parent, state-owned China Ordnance Equipment Group – also known as China South Industries Group – are considering acquiring about 35% and 5% respectively of the new firm, which could be valued at 200 billion

Amazon on Tuesday released its own AI chatbot intended for businesses, about one year after ChatGPT took the world by storm. “Q” will be available only to Amazon’s AWS cloud computing customers and will be in direct competition with OpenAI’s ChatGPT as well as Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s copilots that also run on OpenAI’s technology. Chatbots targeted at businesses have become the main battleground for generative AI, a year after ChatGPT wowed the world with its ability to churn out expert and human-like content instantaneously. Costing $20 monthly per user, Amazon Q will perform a variety of tasks including summarizing uploaded documents and answering questions about specific data sitting on a company’s servers. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy plugged Amazon Q as a more secure version of an AI chatbot in which access to content will be more closely controlled. This was designed to reassure companies that have been put off by the technology’s tendency to churn out incorrect or inappropri

Japan’s space agency was hit with a cyberattack but the information the hackers accessed did not include anything important for rocket and satellite operations, a spokesperson said on Wednesday. “There was a possibility of unauthorised access by exploiting the vulnerability of network equipment,” the spokesperson at Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said, declining to elaborate on details such as when the attack took place. The space agency learned of the possibility of the unauthorised access after receiving information from an external organisation and conducting an internal investigation, the spokesperson said, declining to identify the organisation’s name. Read more: Singapore public health services under cyberattack: agency The investigation is ongoing, the spokesperson said. Japanese media reported Wednesday that the cyberattack occurred during the summer and the police became aware of the attack and notified JAXA this autumn. The Yomiuri newspaper first reported th

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Monday announced she was quitting the X platform formerly known as Twitter, calling it a “gigantic global sewer” that was “destroying our democracies” by spreading abuse and misinformation. After buying Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk laid off thousands of employees, including many who moderated content on the platform. Rebranded as X, it has lost several major advertisers and was blasted by critics, including the White House, for not doing enough to curtail antisemitism. “This platform and its owner intentionally exacerbates tensions and conflicts,” Hidalgo said in lengthy posts in English and French, citing manipulation, disinformation, antisemitism and attacks on scientists, climatologists, women and liberals. Hidalgo’s campaign to transform Paris into a cycling capital has earned her both scorn and praise on social media over the years, with some users criticising the seemingly endless work and visually unappealing worksites under the #SaccageParis (Wreck

The third edition of the Digital Pakistan Cybersecurity Hackathon 2023 organised by the state-owned non-profit company Ignite has been launched in Karachi. The inaugural event in Karachi will be followed by regional rounds in Lahore, Multan, Peshawar, Quetta, and Islamabad, culminating in a final competition to be held in Islamabad by the end of December. Cash awards of Rs3 million will be given to the top three teams after the final competition, the state news agency reported. Caretaker Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecom Dr Umar Saif emphasized the paramount importance of safeguarding the cyber boundaries of the country. He highlighted the ongoing efforts within his Ministry to identify and nurture talent capable of thwarting malicious cyber attempts. In his message at the inaugural event of the third edition of Digital Pakistan Cybersecurity Hackathon 2023, organized by Ignite in Karachi, the minister conveyed the progress in establishing the operational read

Growing calls for the world to come to grips with the many ways that global warming affects human health have prompted the first day dedicated to the issue at crunch UN climate talks starting next week. Extreme heat, air pollution and the increasing spread of deadly infectious diseases are just some of the reasons why the World Health Organization has called climate change the single biggest health threat facing humanity. Global warming must be limited to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius “to avert catastrophic health impacts and prevent millions of climate change-related deaths”, according to the WHO. However, under current national carbon-cutting plans, the world is on track to warm up to 2.9C this century, the UN said this week. While no one will be completely safe from the effects of climate change, experts expect that most at risk will be children, women, the elderly, migrants and people in less developed countries which have emitted the least planet-warming g

India’s government on Friday warned social media firms including Facebook and YouTube to repeatedly remind users that local laws prohibit them from posting deepfakes and content that spreads obscenity or misinformation, two sources told Reuters. The warning was conveyed by deputy IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a closed-door meeting where he said many companies had not updated their usage terms despite 2022 rules that prohibit content “harmful” to children, obscene or that “impersonates another person”. It comes amid growing concerns over deepfakes – realistic yet fabricated videos created by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms trained on online footage – which a top minister this week said this week India is drawing up rules to address. Chandrasekhar said the companies must raise awareness of the rules by reminding users every time they log in that they cannot post such content, or by issuing reminders. He said otherwise he will issue directions forcing them to do so, sai

What if your house plant could tell you your water isn’t safe?. Scientists are closer to realizing this vision, having successfully engineered a plant to turn beet red in the presence of a banned, toxic pesticide. To achieve this, University of California Riverside researchers had to solve an engineering puzzle: how to enable a plant to sense and react to a chemical in the environment without damaging its ability to function normally in all other respects. “The biggest piece here is we’ve developed new ways to repurpose plants so that they can act as environmental sensors,” said Ian Wheeldon, professor of chemical and environmental engineering at UC Riverside. “A key challenge was to do this without disrupting the plant’s ability to grow and develop properly. This new system achieved this, as best we can tell.” A new paper detailing the chemistry behind the achievement has been published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology . The engineering process begins by “hacking” a protein

WhatsApp, the most used Meta-owned messaging app, is soon releasing a shortcut to open the “AI-powered chats” in its new update through the TestFlight beta Program, WABetaInfo reported. This new update will bring the version up to 23.24.10.71 on iPhones, while, in the first place the update was announced for the Android versions of the messaging application but now it will be rolled out for the iOS as well. According to the latest article on the WhatsApp news tracker, “WhatsApp is rolling out a feature that adds a shortcut to open AI-powered chats from the Chats tab, and it’s available to some users.” The upcoming evolving feature of the app underscores the company’s allegiance to highlighting and smoothly integrating AI-assisted interactions into the daily use of the messaging app. As per the screenshot, there is a new button popped up to the bottom right in the navigation bar on WhatsApp, which allows users to instantly open the AI-powered chat. According to WABetaInfo, the AI

Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers wrote a letter to the board of directors warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm were key developments before the board’s ouster of Altman, the poster child of generative AI, the two sources said. Prior to his triumphant return late Tuesday, more than 700 employees had threatened to quit and join backer Microsoft in solidarity with their fired leader. The sources cited the letter as one factor among a longer list of grievances by the board leading to Altman’s firing, among which were concerns over commercializing advances before understanding the consequences. Reuters was unable to review a copy of the letter. The staff who wrote the letter did not respond to requests for comment. After being contacted by Reuters, OpenAI, which declined to comment, ac

Caretaker Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunications Dr. Umar Saif Thursday unveiled Pakistan’s first-ever IT Export Strategy to increase the country’s IT exports, up to $10 billion in the next three years. Speaking as a chief guest at the launching ceremony, he said that the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) under Ministry of IT and Telecommunication (MoITT) in collaboration with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and other international partners, including faculty from the University of Oxford, developed the strategy closely aligned with the government’s vision. The minister said that  Information and Communications Technology (ICT) was the only key that opened the door to stabilizing and strengthening the country’s economy. He said that the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) had a significant role in enabling the sector and removing departmental bottlenecks. The minister hoped the forum of the SIFC would attract more Foreign Direct Investment in Pakis

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Dr Umar Saif on Wednesday said that the government had finalized a plan to transform Pakistan’s optical fiber cable network into a global digital gateway. The implementation of the proposed project would benefit Pakistan by millions of dollars, he disclosed while speaking in a high-level meeting. The meeting was attended by representatives of key organizations, including the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Special Communication Organization, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL), TransWorld, and CyberNet. He said that all the necessary resources and facilities had been provided for the digital gateway initiative. Related: IT ministry to avail Rs8 budget for 9 broadband, optical fiber projects Dr Saif said that the existing optical fiber cable infrastructure, existing from Karachi to Gwadar, could be connected to global marine cables. It would facilitate digital access to regi

Officials and experts around the world are seeking to determine whether North Korea’s first spy satellite is operational as it orbits the earth after being launched on Tuesday, an effort that South Korea asserts was likely to have included Russian aid. North Korea appears to have overcome the technical problems that sent two previous attempts with its new Chollima-1 rocket plunging into the sea. WHAT ARE THE CAPABILITIES OF NORTH KOREA’S ON-ORBIT SPY SATELLITE? Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Reuters that U.S. Space Force data had catalogued two new objects in an orbital plane consistent with the launch from North Korea at the time stated by Pyongyang. “I conclude the objects are the spy satellite and the rocket upper stage,” he said. What remains unconfirmed, however, is whether its payload, the reconnaissance satellite Malligyong-1, is operating, and whether the North received any outside help. It may

A recent supply chain report stated that the smaller iPhone 16 Pro will be set to feature Apple’s tetraprism 120 mm camera, driving demand for the technology in 2024. The iPhone 15 Pro Max which was released back in September, rumors are already circulating about the iPhone 16 Pro inheriting its tetraprism camera, the currently exclusive to Apple’s largest pro model but expected to expand to smaller models in 2024. Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s recent report about the tetraprism supplier Largan and Apple’s 2024 orders, indicates the new camera in smaller pro models in 2024, which would lead to a 160 percent year-over-year growth in iPhones equipped with this technology. 大立光潛望鏡鏡頭良率/獲利顯著提升，為2024年潛望鏡相機顯著成長的主要受益者 / Largan’s periscope lens yield/profitability improves significantly, positioning it as a major beneficiary of the substantial growth of periscope cameras in 2024 https://t.co/ysUk7QYrM1 — 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) November 21, 2023 The earlier report of Kou

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Dr Umar Saif Tuesday said that Pakistan will host the Digital Cooperation Organization’s (DCO) first-ever summit on Digital Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) early next year. This announcement was made during a virtual meeting with the Secretary-General of the Digital Cooperation Organization, where strategic initiatives for the expansion of Pakistani IT companies in DCO member states were also discussed. Dr Umar Saif talked about Pakistan’s robust relations with all DCO member countries and unveiled an innovative approach to facilitate digital businesses through the introduction of the DCO digital passport. This passport, he described as a one-stop-shop, aims to streamline the process for Pakistani companies looking to expand into markets, starting with Saudi Arabia. The minister underscored the pivotal role of DCO in enhancing the investor network for the upcoming Pakistan Startup Fund, a move set to elevate the s

OpenAI named ex-Twitch boss Emmett Shear as interim CEO, while outgoing chief Sam Altman moved to backer Microsoft, in a surprise turn of events that clouded the future of the startup at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom. The appointments, settled late on Sunday, followed Altman’s abrupt ousting just days earlier as CEO of the ChatGPT maker and ended speculation that he could return. By Monday, close to all of OpenAI’s more than 700 employees threatened to quit in a letter demanding the resignation of the board and reinstatement of Altman and former President Greg Brockman, according to a copy viewed by Reuters and a person familiar with the matter. The document was signed by employees including OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, the board member who fired Altman. “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company,” Sutskever said in a

ISLAMABAD: Zindagi Trust and Meta announced their collaboration with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Federal Investigation Authority (FIA), and the National Commission on the Rights of Child (NCRC) to launch a digital campaign “Cultivating Digital Competence of Youth and Parents” to promote youth safety in digital spaces. The collaboration was announced on the occasion of National Children’s Day in Pakistan, which was marked on Monday, a PTA news release said. Shehzad Roy, founder of Zindagi Trust, in his remarks, said the main goal of the campaign was to start the dialogue and educate young people and their parents about online safety and different ways to report negative content such as online bullying, false information, hate speech and spam. “As part of conversations on online safety, safeguarding children on the Internet, addressing their educational requirements, and encouraging positive interactions stand as paramount objectives for the PTA,” the news release

Crypto firm Tether said on Monday that it had frozen $225 million worth of its cryptocurrency which it said had been linked to a human trafficking group in Southeast Asia. The U.S. Secret Service asked Tether to freeze the tokens during a “months-long investigative effort” by Tether and the crypto exchange OKX, Tether said in a blog post, without giving details about the scope or timescale of the investigation. The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Tether and OKX collaborated with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on the investigation, Tether said without elaborating. A spokesperson for the DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The crypto tokens were “linked to an international human trafficking syndicate in Southeast Asia responsible for a global “pig butchering” romance scam,” Tether said. The term “pig butchering” typically refers to instances when a scammer builds trust with their victims over social media, mess

The board of ChatGPT creator OpenAI on Sunday rejected pressure from Microsoft and other major investors to reverse its stunning decision to fire CEO Sam Altman, US media reported. OpenAI and Altman rocketed to fame with the launch of ChatGPT last year, showcasing advances in generative artificial intelligence that set off a gold rush in the sector. But the company’s board shocked the industry on Friday by removing co-founder Altman, prompting other high-profile departures as well as a reported push by major investors to bring the 38-year-old back. The board stood by its decision in a memo sent to employees on Sunday night, saying it was “the only path to advance and defend the mission of OpenAI,” The New York Times reported. “Put simply, Sam’s behavior and lack of transparency in his interactions with the board undermined the board’s ability to effectively supervise the company in the manner it was mandated to do,” the board said in the memo, according to the Times. The OpenAI b

SpaceX’s uncrewed spacecraft Starship, developed to carry astronauts to the moon and beyond, was presumed to have failed in space minutes after lifting off on Saturday during its second test, after its first attempt ended in an explosion. The two-stage rocketship blasted off from the Elon Musk-owned company’s Starbase launch site near Boca Chica in Texas, boosting the Starship spacecraft roughly 55 miles (90 km) above ground on a planned 90-minte flight into space. But the rocket’s Super Heavy first stage booster, though it appeared to achieve a crucial maneuver to separate with its core Starship stage, exploded over the Gulf of Mexico shortly after detaching, a SpaceX webcast showed. Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting second integrated flight test of Starship! Starship successfully lifted off under the power of all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster and made it through stage separation pic.twitter.com/JnCvLAJXPi — SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 18, 20