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Lego Fortnite: Gaming giant launches Minecraft rival

The massively popular video game Fortnite has launched a high-profile collaboration with Lego.Crafting has always been a core mechanic of the online shooter, which has more than 400 million players.Now it has released an entirely new survival game mode, where players will do their crafting with Lego bricks.And it seems to have drawn inspiration fro

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Sony debuts first PS5 controller for disabled gamers

Sony has teamed up with accessibility experts to release a PlayStation 5 controller for disabled gamers.The Access Controller is a "highly customizable kit" of different buttons, triggers, and sticks that lets players create a set-up that suits their needs.Microsoft's Adaptive Controller, which can be used on Xbox and PC, has been on the market sin

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Foxconn raises Q4 outlook on strong year-end holiday sales

Taiwan’s Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker and a major Apple supplier, on Tuesday raised its outlook for the fourth quarter on strong year-end sales for the holiday peak season.The fourth quarter is traditionally the hot season for Taiwan’s tech companies as they race to supply smartphones, tablets and other electronics

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AI defined 2023. Bullets and ballots will shape 2024

How to sum up the most important news of the year past? The obvious answer in 2023 is to use Artificial Intelligence. In that spirit, I asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard – two of the most popular generative AI tools – to do the job for me.Their responses show AI’s power, but also the ways it still falls short, in this case both in

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Japan aircon king Daikin looks to custom chips for energy savings

Japanese air conditioner maker Daikin Industries is turning to custom-made semiconductors to eke out energy savings, as companies increasingly look to bespoke chip designs to enhance performance.As tech heavyweights such as Apple and Amazon spend heavily on custom cutting-edge chips, companies using legacy chips are also looking to introduce custom

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Google DeepMind AI reveals potential for thousands of new materials

Google DeepMind has used artificial intelligence (AI) to predict the structure of more than 2 million new materials, a breakthrough it said could soon be used to improve real-world technologies.In a research paper published in science journal Nature on Wednesday, the Alphabet-owned AI firm said almost 400,000 of its hypothetical material designs co

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IOTA launches $100 million entity in Abu Dhabi to create digital network

Global technology network IOTA on Wednesday launched a $100-million foundation in Abu Dhabi to accelerate the growth of its distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the Middle East, aiming to help convert real-world assets into digital ones, said IOTA co-founder and Chairman Dominik Schiener.DLT is similar to blockchain, a crypto technology whose pot

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Anger as some Google cloud customers locked out of files

Google Drive users have reacted angrily to a glitch leaving some unable to access files from the last six months.Google said it was investigating the issue which is affecting some users of its hugely popular cloud storage service.The problem was first reported on 22 November by a user who said their Drive had reset to a May 2023 vers

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Customers furious after HSBC down for more than 24 hours

HSBC has apologized after thousands of UK customers reported they were unable to access mobile and online banking for more than 24 hours.The bank was flooded with complaints on social media, with users saying they had been unable to pay bills or make discounted Black Friday purchases online since Friday morning.One customer told the BBC the outage

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Microsoft offers to match pay of all OpenAI staff

Microsoft has offered to match the pay of any staff who join it from crisis-ridden OpenAI.Sam Altman was controversially sacked as CEO on Friday, leading to a job offer at Microsoft to lead "a new advanced AI research team".Almost every staff member at OpenAI has threatened to leave unless he and co-founder Greg Brockman are reinstated.It

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Binance sees $956 million in outflows after Zhao steps down to settle US probe

Investors pulled about $956 million from crypto exchange Binance over the past 24 hours, market data showed, after its chief, Changpeng Zhao, stepped down and faced prison time after pleading guilty on Tuesday to settle a years-long U.S. illicit finance probe.The deal, in which Binance will pay $4.3 billion to U.S. authorities, raises questions ove

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Sam Altman: What on earth is happening at OpenAI?

Picture a boardroom battle at a multi-billion-dollar company whose futuristic tech might either save or destroy the world.Its chief executive, who has the ear of world leaders, was toppled as senior colleagues turned on him - only for the rest of the company to demand they should be fired.No, that's not my pitch for a Netflix drama, that'

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YouTube tests AI tool that clones pop stars' voices

YouTube has revealed an artificial intelligence tool that allows users to imitate pop stars like Demi Lovato and John Legend.The experimental feature, called Dream Track, allows users to create short songs by describing qualities including lyrical content and mood.Nine artists have allowed their voice to be "cloned" by the software, including Charl

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Xiaomi Q3 net income jumps on cost savings, revenue rises

Smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp posted a forecast-beating jump in third-quarter net income on Monday, while revenue also topped estimates as flat device shipments outperformed the wider market.The company’s sales for the period totaled 70.9 billion yuan ($9.83 billion), beating an average estimate of 70.2 billion yuan from 13 analysts polled by LSEG

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Tencent to seek domestic AI training chip supplies after latest US curbs

Chinese tech group Tencent Holdings said on Wednesday it will look for domestic sources for AI training chips following new moves by the United States to restrict chip supplies to China.Tencent president Martin Lau said on a call with analysts that the White House’s decision last month to ban more AI chips from export to China will force the comp

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Microsoft says Teams and Xbox fixed in UK and Europe

Microsoft has said problems with accessing its Teams messaging app and XBox gaming platform across the UK and Europe have now been resolved.More than 1,500 people in the UK reported issues with Teams, according to outage tracker Downdetector.A similar number also said there were problems with Xbox Live.It left some who have bought the latest game i

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AI bot capable of insider trading and lying

Artificial Intelligence can perform illegal financial trades and cover it up, new research suggests.In a demonstration at the UK's AI safety summit, a bot used made-up insider information to make an "illegal" purchase of stocks without telling the firm.When asked if it had used insider trading, it denied the fact.Insider trading refers to when conf

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Facebook and Instagram launch ad-free subscription tier in EU

Facebook and Instagram are launching subscriptions in most of Europe that will remove adverts from the platforms.People using the Meta-owned platforms can pay €9.99 (£8.72) per month for an ad-free experience. It will not be available in the UK.In January, Meta was fined €390m for breaking EU data rules around ads.The regulator said at the tim

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Apple revamps Mac lineup and pricing with new family of chips

Apple on Monday introduced new MacBook Pro and iMac computers and three new chips to power them, with the company saying it had redesigned its graphics processing units (GPU), a key part of the chip where Nvidia dominates the market.The new computers and the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips were unveiled at an online event focused on professional users

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Online Safety Bill: divisive internet rules become law

After years of debate, the government's controversial Online Safety Bill, which aims to make the internet safer for children, has become law.It seeks to force tech firms to take more responsibility for the content on their platforms.Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan said it "ensures the online safety of British society not only now, but for dec

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Amazon Web Services to launch European sovereign cloud

Amazon (AMZN.O) Web Services (AWS) said on Wednesday it will launch a sovereign cloud in Europe for governments and customers in highly regulated industries.The sovereign cloud will store data on servers in the European Union, and only EU-resident AWS employees will have control of the operations and provide support, the cloud-computing d

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Strong ad sales, stable enterprise spending wind beneath Big Tech earnings

U.S. technology giants are likely to post their strongest quarterly revenue growth in at least a year as their legacy businesses stabilized, but investors looking for signs of a boost from artificial intelligence (AI) may be disappointed.Microsoft (MSFT.O), Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O), Facebook-parent Meta Platforms (META.O)&nbs

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Nvidia and iPhone maker Foxconn to build 'AI factories'

The world's most valuable chip company Nvidia and iPhone maker Foxconn are joining forces to build so-called "AI factories".The firms say it is a new kind of data center that uses Nvidia chips to power a "wide range" of applications.They include training autonomous vehicles, robotics platforms, and large language models.It comes as the US anno

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German chancellor Olaf Scholz could snub British AI summit

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz may turn down his invitation to a major UK summit on artificial intelligence.The government is hosting an event aimed at tech leaders, academics and political leaders to discuss AI safety on 1 November.The agenda will focus on specific future threats posed by the rapidly evolving tech, such as cyber security.Britain ha

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SoftBank CEO says artificial general intelligence will come within 10 years

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said he believes artificial general intelligence (AGI), artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence in almost all areas, will be realized within 10 years.Speaking at the SoftBank World corporate conference, Son said he believes AGI will be ten times more intelligent than the sum total of all human intelligen

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Smartphones with ‘self-healing’ displays will arrive within five years, analysts predict

In its roundup of top tech predictions for 2024 and beyond, CCS Insight said that it expects smartphone makers to begin producing phones with “self-healing” displays within five years.The way this could work is by incorporating a “nano-coating” on the surface of the display that, if scratched, creates a new material that reacts when exposed

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Amazon and Microsoft to face cloud computing competition probe

The UK's cloud computing market is to face a competition probe over concerns it is being dominated by Amazon and Microsoft.Media watchdog Ofcom said the two make up 70-80% of the sector in the UK, while closest rival Google has 5-10%.Ofcom had said in April it was worried a lack of competition made it difficult for businesses to switch provide

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Humane’s ‘Ai Pin’ debuts on the Paris runway

Humane, a stealthy software and hardware company, is clearly milking the media hype cycle for all it’s worth. The company’s origin dates all the way back to 2017, when it was founded by former Apple employees Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri. In the intervening half-decade, the firm has been largely shrouded in mystery, as it has put togeth

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French software firm Planisware explores options including IPO

Planisware is working with investment bankers on strategic options, including a stock market listing of the French software group, four people familiar with the matter.Rothschild is acting as financial adviser to Planisware, two of the people, who declined to be named, said. BNP Paribas and Citigroup have been lined up to arrange a possible initial

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Meta announces AI chatbots with 'personality'

Meta has announced a series of new chatbots to be used in its Messenger service.The chatbots will have "personality" and specialize in certain subjects, like holidays or cooking advice.It is the latest salvo in a chatbot arms race between tech companies desperate to produce more accurate and personalized artificial intelligence chatbots are st

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Biden signs order to curb U.S. investment in China tech companies

President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at curbing U.S. investment in China's advanced semiconductor, artificial intelligence and quantum computing sectors, in yet another step by his administration to block Beijing from gaining access to key technologies to modernize its military.The order declaring a "national emergency," wh

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Amazon takes on Microsoft as it invests billions in Anthropic

Amazon will invest up to $4bn (£3.3bn) in San Francisco-based AI firm Anthropic, mirroring the earlier tie-up between Microsoft and OpenAI.It is the latest multi-billion dollar investment in a race among the big tech firms to exploit the potential of artificial intelligence.Amazon recently said it would use AI to boost its Alexa voice assistant's

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Thailand expects Tesla, Google, Microsoft to invest $5 billion

Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on Sunday the country expected to receive an investment of at least $5 billion from Tesla (TSLA.O), Google (GOOGL.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O)."Tesla would be looking into an EV manufacturing facility, Microsoft and Google are looking at data centers," he said, without detailing whether the $5 billion wa

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Microsoft announces unified AI assistant, new Surface devices

 Microsoft MSFT.O on Thursday announced a "unified" artificial intelligence (AI) for its Windows 11 platform and four new Surface devices, upping the appeal of its products spruced with the latest technology.The new AI tool, called Copilot, will work across the company's web and productivity applications Bing, Edge browser, and Micro

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Amazon plays catch-up with Alexa generative AI, shows off new, refreshed hardware

Sept 20 (Reuters) -Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O on Wednesday unveiled a slate of new and refreshed devices and updated its Alexa voice assistant with generative artificial intelligence to attract users to the unprofitable product as competition grows from chatbots like Google's Bard.Alexa will converse more naturally, losing its robotic ton

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Braverman and Facebook clash over private message plans

Facebook's owner Meta has hit back at a government campaign strongly critical of its plans to encrypt messages.Protecting messages with end-to-end encryption would mean that they could only be read by sender and recipient.Home Secretary Suella Braverman said encryption could not come at the cost of children's safety, amid fears it can be used to co

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Elon Musk: Social media platform X could go behind paywall

Elon Musk has suggested that all users of X, formerly called Twitter, may have to pay for access to the platform.In a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the billionaire said a payment system was the only way to counter bots."We're moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the system," the Tesla and SpaceX boss sa

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TikTok fined €345m over children's data privacy

Irish regulators have fined TikTok €345m (£296m) for violating children's privacy.The complaint concerned how the social media app handled children's data in 2020 - particularly around age verification and privacy settings.It is the biggest fine to date TikTok has received from regulators.A spokesperson for the social media firm said it "respect

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Google reaches $93 million settlement in tracking location case

Google has reached a $93 million settlement with the state of California to resolve allegations that it was collecting consumers’ data without their consent, the state’s attorney general said in a statement Thursday.The California Department of Justice found that, after a multi-year investigation, the tech giant was “deceiving users by collec

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IDC: Collaboration software spending growth slows; AI features to drive future increases

Global spending on collaboration apps continues to rise as businesses deploy software across their organizations, according to IDC. But the rate of growth has slowed as adoption of videoconferencing tools matures and vendors trim prices.Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share on Reddit Share by Email Print resourceIt includes vid

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Qualcomm to supply Apple with 5G chips until 2026 under new deal

Qualcomm (QCOM.O) said on Monday it had signed a deal with Apple (AAPL.O) to supply 5G chips until at least 2026, at a time when the iPhone maker faces increased challenges in China and looks to reinforce its supply chains elsewhere.The deal extends a relationship worth billions of dollars to Qualcomm for at least three years be

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Tesla supercomputer likely to boost market value by $600 bln

Tesla's (TSLA.O) Dojo supercomputer could power a near $600 billion jump in the automaker's market value by boosting the adoption of robot axis and its software services, Morgan Stanley analysts said.The electric-vehicle maker (EV) started production of the supercomputer used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models for self-driving cars in Jul

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Roblox coming to PlayStation 4 and PS5

The massively popular children's gaming platform Roblox has announced plans to launch on Sony's PlayStation consoles.Roblox has more than 60 million players a day, according to the firm, but it has come under criticism over concerns about poor moderation of its content.Other announcements include a new way to make characters, a communication t

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Cybercrime to cost Germany 206 billion euros in 2023

The theft of IT equipment and data, as well as digital and industrial espionage and sabotage, will cost Germany 206 billion euros ($224 billion) in 2023, German digital association Bitkom said on Friday.The damage will surpass the 200 billion euro mark for the third consecutive year, according to a Bitkom survey of more than 1,000 companies."The Ge

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Leading Sustainability Policy Makers & Trailblazers To Unite at London Climate Technology Show 2023

May 4, London, UK: Europe’s premier climate technology conference & tradeshow is all setto become better and bigger than ever before with the confirmed participation of manyindustry giants from across the world. Aiming to expedite the shift towards a carbon-neutraleconomy, the 2nd edition shall take place at the ExCel London from 26-27 Se

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Silicon Valley-based startup, Heliogen, has raised $250 million to further develop its hydrogen technology

Silicon Valley-based startup, Heliogen, has raised $250 million to further develop its hydrogen technology, which has the potential to significantly reduce carbon emissions in industries such as cement and steel.The funding round was led by billionaire Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures and includes investments from energy companies including

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Microsoft's boost in profits and revenue as it pushes AI

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, reported a strong boost in profits and revenue for its fiscal third quarter, driven by strong sales of its cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) services.The company reported revenue of $41.7 billion for the quarter, up 19% from the same period last year, while net income rose to $15.5 billi

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Alphabet, the parent company of Google, reported its first quarter results, with the company's revenue rising 34% year-on-year to $55.3 billion.

Google's advertising revenue, which accounts for the bulk of Alphabet's revenue, was $44.7 billion, up 32% year-on-year. However, this was below analysts' expectations, and the company's shares fell by around 5% in after-hours trading.According to Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat, the company's advertising business was affected by the pandemic's ongoing imp

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LG Energy Solution's Q1 profits

LG Energy Solution, a unit of South Korean conglomerate LG Group, announced that its first-quarter profits more than doubled, thanks to strong gains in the U.S. market.The company, which produces lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems, reported a net profit of 1.5 trillion won ($1.3 billion) for the first quarter of

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Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, has announced that it is cutting prices by up to 50% for some of its core and storage products.

The move is aimed at helping customers reduce their costs and increase their efficiency.The price cuts will apply to a range of Alibaba Cloud's services, including Elastic Compute Service (ECS), Object Storage Service (OSS), and Relational Database Service (RDS). The reductions will vary depending on the specific product and location, but in some c

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Elon Musk overtaken as world's richest person by LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault

Elon Musk overtaken as world's richest person by LVMH chairman Bernard ArnaultElon Musk has lost his crown of the world’s richest person to LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault. According to the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List, the net worth of Arnault is $181.8 billion, while Elon’s net worth has slumped to $163.7 billion . The net worth of Tesla

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