Year: 2023

Google announced Tuesday that its Bard chatbot would be integrated into Gmail, YouTube and other applications in a push to broaden Alphabet’s user experience. Google has spent years refining its generative AI without immediate plans to release a chatbot, until OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT late last year and partnered with Microsoft to popularize the cutting-edge tool. Google scrambled to put together its response: Bard. Google cleared hurdles earlier this year to release Bard across the globe in dozens of languages, squeaking past European regulators who raised questions about the chatbot’s effect on data security. The search engine giant is now waging a campaign to win public support. These new updates — Bard extensions — represent the company’s most ambitious attempt at popularizing generative AI. Going forward, Bard can work as a…

Britain has invited China to its global artificial intelligence summit in November, with foreign minister James Cleverly saying the risks of the technology could not be contained if one of its leading players was absent. "We cannot keep the UK public safe from the risks of AI if we exclude one of the leading nations in AI tech," Cleverly said in a statement on Tuesday.   Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants Britain to become a global leader in AI regulation and the summit on Nov. 1-2 will bring together governments, tech companies and academics to discuss the risks posed by the powerful new technology. Britain said the event would touch on topics such as how AI could undermine biosecurity as well as how the technology could be used for public…

Just as many in the United States are starting to explore how to use artificial intelligence to make their lives easier, U.S. adversaries and criminal gangs are moving forward with plans to exploit the technology at Americans’ expense. FBI Director Christopher Wray issued the warning Monday, telling a cybersecurity conference in Washington that artificial intelligence, or AI, “is ripe for potential abuses.” “Criminals and hostile foreign governments are already exploiting that technology,” Wray said, without sharing specifics. “While generative AI can certainly save law-abiding citizens time by automating tasks, it can also make it easier for bad guys to do things like generate deepfakes and malicious code and can provide a tool for threat actors to develop increasingly powerful, sophisticated, customizable and scalable capabilities,” he said. Wray said the FBI…

Solar panels soak up blinding noontime rays that help power a water desalination facility in eastern Saudi Arabia, a step towards making the notoriously emissions-heavy process less environmentally taxing. The Jazlah plant in Jubail city applies the latest technological advances in a country that first turned to desalination more than a century ago, when Ottoman-era administrators enlisted filtration machines for hajj pilgrims menaced by drought and cholera. Lacking lakes, rivers and regular rainfall, Saudi Arabia today relies instead on dozens of facilities that transform water from the Gulf and Red Sea into something potable, supplying cities and towns that otherwise would not survive. But the kingdom's growing desalination needs — fueled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's dreams of presiding over a global business and tourism hub — risk clashing…

For more than three decades, Somalia's digital identity system remained stagnant, untouched by the major technological changes sweeping the globe. That standstill is now coming to an end, says Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre. In a historic move, Barre convened a two-day conference in Mogadishu on Saturday, marking the official return of civil registration and the issuance of national ID cards. “Today marks a great day for Somalia as we finally lay the foundations of a reliable and all-inclusive national identification system that is recognized worldwide,” Barre said. After the official inauguration of the system Saturday by the prime minister in Mogadishu, the President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who was in the city of Dhusamareb commanding the fight against al-Shabab militants in central Somalia,…

The Scattered Spider hacking group said on Thursday it took six terabytes of data from the systems of multibillion-dollar casino operators MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment as both companies probed the breaches. Speaking to Reuters via the messaging platform Telegram, a representative for the group said it did not plan to make the data public and declined to comment on whether it had asked the companies for ransom. The group's contact was provided to Reuters by a cybersecurity expert who runs an online repository of malware samples called "vx-underground," and declined to be named. Caesars and MGM did not respond to requests for comment on the amount of data that was breached. Caesars reported to regulators on Thursday it had found that on Sept. 7 hackers took data on…

One of the world's most popular apps, TikTok, is under growing scrutiny in Kenya over what critics see as explicit and offensive content, and hate speech. An activist has petitioned parliament to ban the Chinese app, even as millions of young Kenyans use it for entertainment, social connections, or even to make money. Francis Ontomwa reports from Nairobi. Camera: Amos Wangwa. ...

A government watchdog agency in France has ordered Apple to withdraw the iPhone 12 from the French market, saying it emits levels of electromagnetic radiation that are too high. The National Frequency Agency, which oversees radio-electric frequencies as well as public exposure to electromagnetic radiation, called on Apple in a statement Tuesday to "implement all available means to rapidly fix this malfunction" for phones already being used. Corrective updates to the iPhone 12 will be monitored by the agency, and if they don't work, "Apple will have to recall" phones that have already been sold, according to the French regulator's statement. Apple disputed the findings and said the device complies with all regulations governing radiation. The agency, which is known by the French acronym ANFR, said it recently checked 141…

In Indian cities, most electric vehicles seen on the roads are not cars, but three- and two-wheel vehicles that deliver goods and ferry passengers in cities. Anjana Pasricha reports on how the exponential growth in these electric vehicles in New Delhi and surrounding towns could contribute to cleaning up the air in one of the world’s most polluted cities. Video: Darshan Singh ...

At bus stops and metro stations in the Indian capital and towns around it, passengers are accustomed to the familiar call by three-wheel electric rickshaw drivers to take an eight-cent, shared ride to their offices, homes or markets. The ride-hailing trade is flourishing according to the hundreds of rickshaw drivers crowding the streets. "It is much better than a petrol vehicle. It does not create pollution and it is cheaper to run. After charging, my battery lasts for 80 to 120 kilometers," said Abdul Alam, as he stood outside a metro station in Gurugram, a business hub, to which thousands of commuters travel daily from New Delhi. In India, most electric vehicles are not cars, but three wheelers that ferry passengers and deliver goods or two wheelers used for personal…

Apple unveiled its next generation of iPhones Tuesday — a lineup that will boast better cameras, faster processors, a new charging system and a price hike for the fanciest model. The showcase at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, comes as the company tries to reverse a mild slump that has seen its sales drop from last year in three consecutive quarters. The malaise is a key reason Apple's stock price has dipped by about 10% since mid-July, dropping the company's market value below the $3 trillion threshold it reached for the first time earlier this summer. Investors apparently weren't impressed with what Apple rolled out. The company's shares fell nearly 2% Tuesday, a steeper decline than the major market indexes. As has been case with Apple and other smartphone makers,…

From zero to 100 kph in less than a second: A racing car built by students has broken the world record for electric vehicle acceleration, a Swiss university said Tuesday.  Students from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences designed and built the "Mythen" vehicle that achieved the feat, ETHZ said in a statement.  "Now, Guinness World Records has confirmed that Mythen broke the previous world acceleration record for electric vehicles," it said.  Covering a distance of 12.3 meters (40.4 feet) at the Switzerland Innovation Park in Dübendorf, opposite the students' workshop, the car was powered from zero to 100 kilometers per hour (zero to 62.15 miles per hour) in 0.956 seconds.  "This beats the previous world record of 1.461 seconds, set…

For at least the second time this year, U.S. cyber forces have come to the aid of a Baltic ally, as concerns linger about potential cyberattacks from Russia and other Western adversaries. U.S. Cyber Command Tuesday announced the completion of a two-month-long, so-called “defensive hunt” operation in Lithuania, alongside Lithuanian cyber teams. The focus of the operation, according to a spokesperson with the U.S. Cyber National Mission Force, was to look for malicious cyber activity on networks belonging to Lithuania’s Interior Ministry. Neither U.S. nor Lithuanian officials were willing to specify the exact nature of the threat, but just last year Vilnius was hit with a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), claimed by the Russian hacking group known as Killnet. “We need to develop competences and be more resilient…

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors will argue that Google has violated antitrust law by allegedly bribing big-name web browsers and essentially forcing software developers to make the search engine users' default option.  The Justice Department brought its lawsuit against Google almost three years ago, when former President Donald Trump was still in office. Now, the case has gone to trial and will play out over the next two-and-a-half months, with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and a top Apple executive, Eddie Cue, both expected to testify.  U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta is not expected to issue a verdict until early 2024.  Google pays billions each year to be the main search engine on Safari, Firefox and other popular web browsers. Device manufacturers that want complete access to the Google Play app store…