Science and technology

Apple on Thursday rejected Elon Musk’s claim that its digital App Store favors OpenAI’s ChatGPT over his company’s Grok and other rival AI assistants. Musk has accused Apple of giving unfair preference to ChatGPT on its App Store and threatened legal action, triggering a fiery exchange with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this week. “The App Store is designed to be fair and free of bias,” Apple said in reply to an AFP inquiry. “We feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations, and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria.” Apple added that its goal at the App Store is to offer “safe discovery” for users and opportunities for developers to get their creations noticed. But earlier this week, Musk said Apple was “behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation,” without providing evidence to back his claim. Read more: Apple announces $100 billion...

KARACHI: Search engine giant Google, known for designing creative doodles to mark cultural and social events worldwide, has released a special illustration to celebrate Pakistan’s 78th Independence Day. This year’s doodle features Pakistan’s green crescent-and-star flag waving proudly against a vast sky, symbolising national pride and commemorating the spirit of freedom. The design has attracted global attention and added to the festive mood across the country. Google’s Independence Day tribute is often reflective of a nation’s culture and heritage. For 2024, the waving flag takes centre stage, portraying unity and patriotism. Read more: Nation celebrates Independence Day with traditional zeal Google has been marking Pakistan’s Independence Day with customised doodles since 2011, starting with a green-themed design featuring the crescent, star, and Minar-e-Pakistan. Over the years, the tradition has evolved into a cherished part of the nation’s annual celebrations. from Scien...

Bitcoin hit a record high on Thursday as increasing expectations for easier monetary policy from the Federal Reserve added to tailwinds from recently announced financial reforms. The world’s largest crypto-asset by market capitalisation climbed as much as 0.9% to $124,002.49 in early Asia trading, surpassing its previous peak hit in July. On the day, the second largest crypto-token ether hit $4,780.04, the highest level since late 2021. Bitcoin’s rally is being powered by increasing certainty of Fed rate cuts, sustained institutional buying and moves by the Trump administration to ease investment in crypto assets, said IG market analyst Tony Sycamore. “Technically a sustained break above $125k could propel BTC to $150,000,” he wrote in a note. Bitcoin has risen nearly 32% so far in 2025 on the back of long-sought regulatory wins for the sector following President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Trump has called himself the “crypto president” and his family has made a ser...

A Ubisoft developer has shared a major update on the future of the Assassins vs Templars storyline in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The long-running storyline about the fights between the two is one of the fan-favourite conflict in the game franchise. However, the Assassins vs Templars conflict was mostly sidelined in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The recent entry in the hit game franchise had Templars play a smaller in the plot. That is about to change as a Ubisoft developer has said that the secret war would be expanded in the future. “The Assassins vs Templars conflict has always been a core pillar of Assassin’s Creed,” level design director Luc Plante said in an interaction with fans on Reddit. “With Shadows, we wanted to properly set our protagonist in the setting before expanding on the Assassins vs Templars. Now that it’s done on the main game, we scratched the surface with the Critical Role story drop, and you can expect more deep dives in this conflict in the near future,” he a...

ISLAMABAD: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot with Japanese blockchain technology company Soramitsu by the end of 2025, marking a major step towards the country’s digital financial transformation. The initiative follows the federal government’s approval of the Virtual Assets Act 2025 last month. According to Japanese news outlet Nikkei Asia, the project is backed by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry under the Global South Future-Oriented Co-Creation Project, aiming to tackle challenges in Pakistan’s largely cash-dependent economy. Pakistan’s digital currency effort gets support from Japan https://t.co/fXwVhsUzCI — Nikkei Asia (@NikkeiAsia) August 11, 2025 The CBDC is expected to reduce the high costs of cash circulation and promote financial inclusion. Soramitsu is also developing an offline transaction feature, allowing digital currency payments via smartphones without continuous internet connectivity — a ...

Meta’s messaging platform WhatsApp has a feature to undo an accidentally deleted message, which many users have missed for a long time. When deleting a message, users see a prompt featuring a ‘Delete for Me’ option and ‘Delete for Everyone’ option. If users tap the ‘Delete for Me’ option, WhatsApp removes the message from the sender’s chat, however, it remains on the receiver’s phone. The ‘Delete for Everyone’ option recalls it from the receiver’s phone and also removes it from the sender’s chat. WhatsApp users could accidentally delete a message for themselves in haste when they really want the message to be recalled in a conversation. Read more: WhatsApp to introduce new ‘Quick Recaps’ feature to summarize chats The messaging platform has a feature to undo the action, allowing users to recalls the message for all people in a conversation. How to undo deleted WhatsApp messages: If you accidentally deleted the message for yourself by tapping ‘Delete for Me,’ you will see a sm...

Take-Two Interactive boss is opening up about Rockstar Games’ plans for the release of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 6. The hotly anticipated game was originally scheduled for a release in Fall 2025, however, Rockstar Games announced delaying the release date in May earlier this year. As per the revised release date, GTA 6 will hit the shelves on May 26, 2026. Fans were left concerned when rumours emerged last month that the game could slip from the revised release date. A GTA leaker, going by the name of Millie A on X, claimed that internal talks at the Rockstar Games might lead the upcoming game to slip to September. “Planned release: May 2026, but internal talks suggest a possible slip to Sep,” the leaker wrote in a post on X. Read more: Take-Two boss shares his views on GTA 6 price Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has now reiterated that the sixth title in the Grand Theft Auto franchise was a priority for the developer. “My level of conviction is very, very high, obviousl...