Science and technology

WhatsApp is among the most popular messaging apps, with developers constantly rolling out new and upcoming features through the beta channel. The app introduced one such feature a couple of weeks ago, a search bar for the Chats tab, helping users search for a specific message from a long list of conversations. While the new search bar was added with WhatsApp beta version 2.24.7.1, it hasn’t yet made its wider appearance for all users. But that’s changing now, with devices showing a prominent search bar in the Chats tab. Users managed to spot this under-development search bar in WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.24.6.77, which first debuted in early March. This makes it clear that the search bar is being tested across multiple app versions, indicating that it’s here to stay.   An early version of the search bar (left); The newly spotted search bar in WhatsApp beta (right) A side-by-side comparison with the search bar that first appeared in version 2.24.7.1 of WhatsApp beta rev

People with voice disorders, including those with pathological vocal cord conditions or who are recovering from laryngeal cancer surgeries, can often find it difficult or impossible to speak. That may soon change. A team of UCLA engineers has invented a soft, thin, stretchy device measuring just over 1 square inch that can be attached to the skin outside the throat to help people with dysfunctional vocal cords regain their voice function. Their advance is detailed in the journal Nature Communications . The new bioelectric system, developed by Jun Chen, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and his colleagues, is able to detect movement in a person’s larynx muscles and translate those signals into audible speech with the assistance of machine-learning technology — with nearly 95% accuracy. The breakthrough is the latest in Chen’s efforts to help those with disabilities. His team previously developed a wearable glove capable of translatin

He was called China’s answer to Steve Jobs for taking Xiaomi from scrappy startup to an electronics giant known for its smartphones. With the launch of a much-hyped and against-the-odds electric car, Xiaomi SU7, Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s co-founder and CEO, is taking on Elon Musk with a strategy that takes a page from Tesla’s playbook. Lei, 54, took the stage in Beijing on Thursday to unveil Xiaomi’s SU7 car, a project three years in the making that has attracted a lot of attention but which, Lei has warned investors, will lose money. During Thursday’s two-hour event – a livestream millions of Chinese tuned in to watch – Lei made a jibe at Apple for dropping its car project and declared Xiaomi’s EV superior to Tesla’s Model 3. Fans dubbed the Xiaomi CEO “Thor” on social media, a play on his surname which means thunder in Chinese. Some commented that his outfit – a grey blazer over a black t-shirt – looked like something Musk would wear. Already a household name in China, Lei’s marketing s

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI said on Thursday it will launch an enhanced version of its chatbot Grok. The new version, called Grok-1.5, will be made available to early testers and existing Grok users on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, in the coming days, xAI said in a statement. The startup said one of the most notable improvements in the new version is its performance in coding and math-related tasks. Seeking an alternative to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google, Musk launched xAI last year to create what he said would be a “maximum truth-seeking AI”. In December, the startup rolled out Grok for Premium+ subscribers of X. Earlier this month, Musk said xAI would open-source Grok, days after the billionaire had sued OpenAI for allegedly abandoning its original mission in favor of a for-profit model. from Science and Technology News - Latest science and technology news https://ift.tt/IZSj5DA

Visa and Mastercard reached an estimated $30 billion settlement to limit credit and debit card fees for merchants, with some savings likely to be passed on to consumers through lower prices. The antitrust settlement announced on Tuesday is one of the largest in U.S. history, and if it receives court approval would resolve most claims in nationwide litigation that began in 2005. Some critics believe it may not go far enough, saying the savings would be temporary and fees would remain high. Merchants have long accused Visa and Mastercard of charging inflated swipe fees, or interchange fees, when shoppers used credit or debit cards, and barring them through “anti-steering” rules from directing customers toward cheaper means of payment. Swipe fees typically include small fixed fees plus a percentage of total sale amounts, and average about 1.5% to 3.5% per transaction according to Bankrate.com. Under the settlement, Visa and Mastercard would reduce swipe rates by at least four basis

WhatsApp introduced a new feature, enabling users to pin up to three messages in both individual and group chats. The announcement was made by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Will Cathcart, the CEO of WhatsApp. That group’s members are informed about it. Different message formats, including text, photos, and polls, can be pinned by users. Users who join a group after a message has been pinned, however, won’t see it. It won’t be visible to those who have erased the message before it was pinned or don’t have access to the group chat history. Android users are advised to pin a specific message, tap and hold it, pick the three dots in the upper right corner, and click Pin > choose the pin duration > Pin. On iOS, users can click More options > Pin and choose the duration of the pin after tapping and holding a message. Users of desktop and web apps might choose Pin message > choose the pin duration > Pin after selecting the downward arrow button that displays next to a m

WhatsApp is on the verge of a significant transformation in user interaction with the integration of Meta AI directly into its search bar. This bold move aims to simplify access to AI assistance within the app, removing the requirement for users to navigate to a separate Meta AI conversation. Unveiled in the latest Android WhatsApp beta update (version 2.23.25.15) by WABetaInfo, this innovative feature is set to redefine how users engage with Meta AI. Instead of searching for the Meta AI shortcut, users can now simply begin typing in the search bar to access its extensive knowledge and assistance. The update will grant users greater control over their app interface, allowing them to manage the visibility of the Meta AI shortcut within the top app bar. Additionally, WhatsApp is actively exploring other ways to enhance user interaction with Meta AI, even without the immediate presence of the shortcut. Seamless Querying with Prompts In a recent discovery within the WhatsApp beta for

Bitcoin enthusiasts appear to be shrugging off last week’s outflows from US exchange-traded funds, with the largest cryptocurrency climbing back above $70,000 again. Most digital assets were higher Monday, with Bitcoin gaining as much as 7.1% to $70,816. That’s the first time the token has been above $70,000 in more than a week. Ether was up around 6%, while Solana and Dogecoin were both more than 4% higher. Almost $900 million was pulled from those ETFs last week, reflecting continual outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust as well as a moderation in subscriptions for offerings from BlackRock Inc. and Fidelity Investment. The group of 10 funds saw one of the worst weeks of the year since they were launched in January. “Even though ETF inflows have hit a drag, order books are loaded on the bid side around the 60k area, showing that the market is eager to buy the dip,” said Nathanaël Cohen, co-founder at digital-asset hedge fund INDIGO Fund. “You need to go get the liquidity at l

Apple, Google and Meta Platforms will be investigated for potential breaches of the Digital Markets Act, EU antitrust regulators said on Monday, potentially leading to hefty fines for the companies. The law, effective from March 7, requires six gatekeepers – which provide services like search engines, social networks and chat apps used by other businesses – to comply with guidance to ensure a level playing field for their rivals and to give users more choices. Violations could result in fines of as much as 10% of the companies’ global annual turnover. The European Commission said it suspects that the measures put in place by these gatekeepers fall short of effective compliance under the act, confirming a Reuters story. The EU competition enforcer will investigate Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play and self-preferencing on Google Search, Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store and the choice screen for Safari and Meta’s ‘pay or consent model’. Asked if the Commission w

Xiaomi’s CEO said on Monday that his firm’s first electric vehicle aims to be the “best looking, easiest to drive and smartest car” priced below 500,000 yuan ($69,424), as the Chinese electronics maker gears up for orders this week. The company will on Thursday evening announce its official price range and start taking orders for the SU7, short for Speed Ultra 7. CEO Lei Jun’s comments, made on his official Weibo account, mark the first time the company has confirmed the upper end of its price range. Anticipation for the car has been building up since Xiaomi unveiled the vehicle in December and announced it aimed to become one of the world’s top five automakers. Lei has touted it as having technology capable of delivering acceleration better than Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab cars and Porsche’s EVs. Seventy-six Xiaomi stores in 29 Chinese cities began displaying the car on Monday, with prospective customers and car bloggers lining up in one central Beijing showroom to get a close v

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Friday sought a comprehensive strategy for increase in information technology exports of the country on priority basis. He was chairing a meeting on progress of the information technology sector. The meeting was attended by prominent information technology experts. The PM said information technology had a prominent role in the economy. The capacity of the information technology sector to boost the country’s economy would be utilized, he added. He further said that every sector of the economy would be modernized with the use of technology. Youth would be provided facilities of international level to equip them with knowledge and skills of the present age in the sector of information technology, PM Shehbaz Sharif added. The services of the information technology experts would be hired for advancement of the IT sector, he remarked. The meeting was informed that a strategy was being prepared for reforms in the information technology sector a

The US Department of Justice sued Apple on Thursday for illegally maintaining a monopoly for its iPhone by stifling competition and imposing exorbitant costs on consumers. The lawsuit, brought also by 17 US states, attacked the iPhone for raking in hundreds of billions of dollars by making it difficult for consumers to switch away from Apple to cheaper smartphones and devices. The long anticipated case against Apple sees the company founded by Steve Jobs clash with Washington after largely escaping US government scrutiny for nearly a half century. At the heart of the case is Apple’s app store which sets strict and at times opaque conditions on firms and developers seeking to reach the iPhone’s 136 million US users. According to the lawsuit, these rules and decisions have been designed to force Apple users into staying in the Apple ecosystem and buying the company’s expensive hardware, the iPhone. “Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies violate the antitr

Social media platform Reddit geared up for its high-profile market debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, setting the stage for other companies looking to go public this year, while testing investor appetite for new issues. The San Francisco, California-based company priced its initial public offering (IPO) at the top end of the $31 to $34 range it had marketed earlier. The IPO valued Reddit at $6.4 billion and raised $748 million for the company and its selling shareholders. Reddit’s long-awaited stint as a publicly traded company has been in the works for more than two years. It confidentially filed for an IPO in Dec. 2021, but the stock rout due to the Federal Reserve’s quantitative tightening prompted a delay. The eyeball-grabbing debut will be a major test of the IPO market, where investors are seeing some green shoots, thanks to increasing bets of a soft landing. “If Reddit trades poorly, it will cast a shadow over the IPO market. Many companies will hit pause on

OSLO: The Abel Prize for mathematics was awarded Wednesday to France’s Michel Talagrand, an expert on probability theory and functional analysis who says mathematics “gives you wings”. The former head of French scientific research institute CNRS, Talagrand, 72, was honoured for “groundbreaking contributions” that have “outstanding applications in mathematical physics and statistics,” the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters said. Talagrand, who did most of his research at Paris University’s Mathematics Institute, is the fifth Frenchman to win the Abel Prize since it was first awarded in 2003. He told AFP he was surprised to win the prestigious award. “I would never have thought it possible, it was incredible to get the news,” he said. Talagrand said he had had “such fun” throughout his career working in a field “free from constraints”, and that when it comes to mathematics, “the more you do it, the easier it gets.” Named after the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1

France’s competition watchdog on Wednesday said it fined Alphabet’s Google’s 250 million euros ($271.73 million) for breaches linked to EU intellectual property rules in its relationship with media publishers, citing concerns about the company’s AI service. The watchdog said Google’s AI-powered chatbot Bard – since rebranded under the name Gemini – was trained on content from publishers and news agencies, without notifying them. Google has pledged not to contest the facts as part of settlement proceedings, the watchdog said, adding the company also proposed a series of remedy measures to certain shortcomings. Google said it accepted the settlement “because it is time to move on”, adding “we want to focus on the larger goal of sustainable approaches to connecting people with quality content and on working constructively with French publishers.” The company said the fine was disproportionate, and said the watchdog had not sufficiently taken into account its efforts “in an environmen

SHANGHAI: Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab CEO Tim Cook said he is currently visiting Shanghai, according to a post on his Weibo account on Wednesday. Cook said he spent the morning walking along Shanghai’s historic Bund river with Chinese actor Zheng Kai and having a local breakfast but did not disclose what other plans he had for this China visit. His visit comes after the iPhone maker announced that it would open a new retail store in the heart of the Chinese financial hub on Thursday, and as Apple battles falling iPhone sales in China and rising competition from domestic rivals such as Huawei (HWT.UL). Read more: Apple in talks to let Google’s Gemini power iPhone AI features Cook made at least two visits to China, Apple’s third-largest market by revenue, last year. He also travelled to Beijing around the same time last year, where he visited an Apple store and attended the China Development Forum. Separately, Apple is in talks to build Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence eng

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Tuesday announced the establishment of Pakistan’s first IT city in Lahore, ARY News reported. She announced this while chairing third cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The meeting was also attended by provincial ministers, chief secretary and IGP. In the meeting, the chief minister also approved annual and supplementary budget grants for 2023-24. The chief minister further instructed to hand over the Lahore Knowledge Park to the Punjab Central Business District Authority. Speaking on the occasion, she said that IT city would be completed within a year. All the major universities of the world would be invited to establish their campuses, she added. The chief minister also approved the project of giving 20,000 electric bikes to students on soft installments. The distribution of bikes would be started from May this year. She also highlighted the need for starting the air ambulance project on a trial basis in order to assist patients who resid

Global heat records were “smashed” last year, the UN confirmed Tuesday, with 2023 rounding out the hottest decade on record, as heatwaves stalked oceans and glaciers suffered record ice loss. The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization issued its annual State of the Climate report, confirming preliminary data indicating that 2023 was by far the hottest year ever recorded. And it came at the end of “the warmest 10-year period on record”, the WMO report said. UN chief Antonio Guterres said the report showed “a planet on the brink”. “Earth’s issuing a distress call,” he said, pointing out that “fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts”, and warning that “changes are speeding up”. The WMO said the average near-surface temperature was 1.45 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels last year — dangerously close to the critical 1.5-degree threshold that countries agreed to avoid passing in the 2015 Paris climate accords. “Never have we been so close… to

Meta has offered to almost halve its monthly subscription fee for Facebook and Instagram to 5.99 euros from 9.99 euros, a senior Meta executive said on Tuesday, a move that aims to address concerns from both privacy and antitrust regulators. The move came amid mounting criticism from privacy activists and consumer groups about Meta’s no-ads subscription service launched in Europe in November which critics say requires users to pay a fee to ensure their privacy. Meta launched the service to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) which curbs its ability to personalise ads for users without their consent, hurting its major revenue source. The company said the fee model seeks to balance the conflicting demands between EU privacy laws and the new tech rule DMA. “We have wanted to accelerate that process for some time because we need to get to a steady state…so we have offered to drop the price from 9.99 to 5.99 for a single account and 4 euros for any additional accounts,” Meta lawy

Apple is in talks to build Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence engine into the iPhone, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the situation. The negotiations are about licensing Gemini for some new features coming to the iPhone software this year, the report said, adding that the terms or branding of an AI agreement or how it would be implemented have not been decided. It is unlikely that any deal would be announced until June, when Apple plans to hold its annual conference of developers, and the iPhone maker also recently held talks with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI about using its model, according to the report. Apple, Alphabet-owned Google and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Alphabet shares rose 3% in premarket U.S. trading, while Apple was up 0.5%. A potential deal between the firms could help Google expand the use of its AI services to more than 2 billion active Apple devices, boosting the search giant’s efforts to cat

Turkey’s competition authority imposed on Monday an interim measure on Meta Platforms meant to hinder data sharing between the Instagram and Threads platforms as it investigates possible abuse of the company’s dominant market position. In December, the authority launched an investigation into Facebook parent Meta over a possible violation of competition law by linking its social media platforms Instagram and the newer Threads. The authority said the interim measure would remain in place until a final decision is made, since the data obtained and merged through these two apps could “violate competition law and cause irreparable damage” in the market. Separately, the Turkish authority fined Meta 4.8 million lira ($148,000) daily as part of a separate investigation over a notification message that the company sends users about the sharing of data. The notification about data sharing between the company’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services did not provide sufficient information

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan earned US $1.719 billion by providing different Information Technology (IT) services to various countries during the first seven months of the current fiscal year 2023-24, ARY News reported. This shows a growth of 12.78 per cent as compared with the US $1,524.969 million earned through the provision of services during the corresponding months of the last fiscal year 2022-23, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported. During the months under review, the export of computer services grew by 14.09 per cent as it surged from US $1,224.499 million last year to US $1,397.051 million during July-January 2023-24. Among the computer services, the exports of software consultancy services witnessed an increase of 1.14 per cent, from US $3.502 million to US $3.542 million this year while the export of hardware consultancy services also surged by 4.73 per cent, from US $454.283 million to US $475.783 million. The export of repair and maintenance services however decre

US authorities are investigating Meta over its role in the illicit sale of medications, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. Citing documents and people close to the matter, the American business daily said prosecutors in the southern US state of Virginia are looking into whether the company’s social media platforms are facilitating and profiting from the illegal sale of drugs. Prosecutors have asked for records on “violative drug content on Meta’s platforms and/or the illicit sale of drugs via Meta’s platforms,” according to copies of subpoenas reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been helping with the investigation, the paper reported. “The sale of illicit drugs is against our policies and we work to find and remove this content from our services,” Meta told the Journal in a statement, adding that it “proactively cooperates” with law enforcement to help combat the sale of illicit drugs. Contacted by AFP on Saturday morning, neith

Amazon’s self-driving car unit, Zoox, is seeking to stay abreast of rival Waymo by expanding its vehicles’ testing in California and Nevada to include a wider area, higher speeds and nighttime driving. The changes, announced on Thursday, apply to Zoox’s fleet of vehicles that it designed and built itself. Those resemble toaster ovens on wheels and lack manual controls inside, like steering wheels, pedals and gear shifters. Zoox also operates retrofitted self-driving Toyota Highlanders in Seattle, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Foster City, California.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Zoox (@zoox) The moves are modest compared with Alphabet’s Waymo, which this week announced a plan to begin a taxi service in Los Angeles, on top of the existing markets of San Francisco and Phoenix, where it already ferries passengers in its retrofitted autonomous Jaguars. Zoox said it will free up its specially designed vehicles to drive at spee

El Salvador will transfer “a big chunk” of its bitcoin assets to an offline device that will be stored in a physical vault within the Central American country’s territory, President Nayib Bukele said on Thursday. “We’ve decided to transfer a big chunk of our Bitcoin to a cold wallet, and store that cold wallet in a physical vault within our national territory,” Bukele, who last month was re-elected to a second term as president, said in a post on X. “It’s not much, but it’s honest work.” According to Bukele’s social media account on Thursday, El Salvador’s bitcoin portfolio is at close to $407 million. The true size of the holdings remains unclear, but a recent rally in bitcoin values has reignited interest in the world’s largest, if volatile, cryptocurrency. Bitcoin on Thursday hit a record high of $73,800. In September 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to establish bitcoin as legal tender, earning it harsh criticism. One of the strongest critics was the In

Activision has just dropped a new official trailer of ‘Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile’ as the countdown began worldwide for next week on March 21. The mobile battle royale is bringing the iconic Verdansk and Rebirth Island maps from Warzone to iOS and Android. Up to 120 players can squad up for massive battles on Verdansk, while Rebirth caps out at 48 combatants. Multiplayer modes like Domination and Kill Confirmed are also included. Activision says that the upcoming title has already amassed over 50 million pre-registrations already. The graphics are a step up from the existing ‘Call of Duty: Mobile’ too based on the new trailer footage. Read more: Call of Duty 2024 is reportedly a new Black Ops Activision confirmed that ‘Call of Duty: Mobile’ isn’t going anywhere after Warzone Mobile launches. New content will continue rolling out for both mobile games throughout 2024 and beyond. The announcement came with a promise of exciting rewards for players post-launch, including coveted i

SpaceX’s Starship mega rocket was “lost” during re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere during its third test flight, the company said in a webcast Thursday. “We are making the call now that we have lost ship 28,” an announcer said during a live stream watched by more than 3.5 million people. from Science and Technology News - Latest science and technology news https://ift.tt/rMLNoSl

South Korean researchers have grown beef cells in rice grains in what they say is a major step towards achieving a sustainable, affordable and environmentally friendly source of protein that could replace farmed cattle for meat. Professor Jinkee Hong of Yonsei University in Seoul, who led the research published in the journal Matter this month, said the “beef rice” is the first product of its kind. It uses grain particles as the base for cultivating animal muscle and fat cells. In the research, rice grains were treated with enzymes to create an optimal environment for cell growth, then infused with bovine cells that are cultivated to achieve the final hybrid product, which resembles a pinkish grain of rice. The Yonsei team is not the first to work on lab-grown meat products. Companies around the world have launched cultivated meat; one of the latest involves plant-based chicken and eel cultivated from a soy base, marketed in Singapore. Hong’s team said rice has an advantage in te

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Wednesday that would give TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest  the U.S. assets of the short-video app, or face a ban, in the greatest threat to the app since the Trump administration. The bill passed 352-65 in a bipartisan vote, but it faces a more uncertain path in the Senate where some favor a different approach to regulating foreign-owned apps posing security concerns. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate will review the legislation. The measure is the latest in a series of moves in Washington to respond to U.S. national security concerns about China, from  connected vehicles  to advanced  artificial intelligence  chips to  cranes at U.S. ports . “This is a critical national security issue. The Senate must take this up and pass it,” No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise said of TikTok on social media platform X. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added later that