Life

US sues Apple: DOJ alleges illegal monopoly practices with iPhone

By Alex PIGMAN WASHINGTON, March 22, 2024 (AFP) – The US Department of Justice sued Apple on Thursday, accusing the tech giant of illegally maintaining a monopoly for its iPhone by stifling competition and imposing exorbitant costs on consumers. The lawsuit, also brought by multiple US states, said Apple raked in hundreds of billions of dollars by allegedly making it difficult for consumers to switch to cheaper smartphones and devices. The long anticipated case against […]

Spring’s splendor: Celebrating 75 years of blooms at Keukenhof

LISSE, Netherlands, March 22, 2024 (AFP) – The world’s biggest tulip garden opened to the public on Thursday for its 75th edition, with hundreds of thousands of people expected to enjoy a bewildering array of seven million bulbs in the western Dutch city of Lisse. Keukenhof park, southwest of Amsterdam in the heart of “bulb country”, contains millions of tulips of every colour as well as other flowers across 32 hectares (80 acres). The park […]

US surgeons transplant pig kidney to live patient in world first

By Chris Lefkow WASHINGTON, March 21, 2024 (AFP) – US surgeons have successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a living patient for the first time, the hospital said Thursday, a procedure that could help address the chronic shortage of donor organs. The four-hour operation was carried out on Saturday on a 62-year-old man suffering from end-stage kidney disease, Massachusetts General Hospital said. “The procedure marks a major milestone in the quest to provide […]

Neuralink shows quadriplegic playing chess with brain implant

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21, 2024 (AFP) – Neuralink on Wednesday streamed a video of its first human patient playing computer chess with his mind and talking about the brain implant making that possible. Noland Arbaugh, 29, who was left paralyzed from the shoulders down by a diving accident eight years ago, told of playing chess and the videogame “Civilization” as well as taking Japanese and French lessons by controlling a computer screen cursor with his […]

The search to discover why ‘outliers’ survive deadliest cancers

By Isabelle TOURNÉ When Herve found out he had glioblastoma — the most aggressive form of brain cancer — at the age of 40, he made a deal with himself. “I said to myself: it is serious, but you are at war — and you’re going to win,” the French teacher, who did not want to give his surname, told AFP. “For my wife and children, I forbade myself to die.” Eight years later, following […]

‘I had such fun!’, says winner of top maths prize

By Juliette Collen For Michel Talagrand, who won the Abel mathematics prize on Wednesday, maths provided a fun life free from all constraints — and an escape from the eye problems he suffered as a child. “Maths, the more you do it, the easier it gets,” the 72-year-old said in an interview with AFP. He is the fifth French Abel winner since the award was created by Norway’s government in 2003 to compensate for the […]

Afghan girls and women cling to glitchy, lonesome online learning

By Aysha Safi and Susannah Walden KABUL, March 20, 2024 (AFP) – Sequestered at home in a remote Afghan town, 18-year-old Shekiba often roams the house hunting for the patchy internet signal that is her last link to an education. Shekiba has turned to online learning since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 and shut her out of classrooms, signing up for live economics lectures she squints at on a pocket-sized phone screen. She […]

Finland is world’s happiest country for seventh year: study

HELSINKI, March 20, 2024 (AFP) – Finland remained the world’s happiest country for a seventh straight year in an annual UN sponsored World Happiness Report published on Wednesday. And Nordic countries kept their places among the 10 most cheerful, with Denmark, Iceland and Sweden trailing Finland. Afghanistan, plagued by a humanitarian catastrophe since the Taliban regained control in 2020, stayed at the bottom of the 143 countries surveyed. For the first time since the report […]

UN warns ‘planet on the brink’ after warmest decade on record

By Nina LARSON GENEVA, March 19, 2024 (AFP) – 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 […]

Apple in talks to bring Google’s Gemini AI to iPhone: report

Apple is in advanced negotiations with Google to adopt its powerful Gemini AI models for the iPhone, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The move, if confirmed and resulting in a deal, would answer one of the big questions about the iPhone-maker’s AI strategy, which has been criticized as lagging its tech giant rivals. Google’s share price soared by well over six percent on the news. Apple’s was up by as much as 2.5 percent. According to […]

Elon Musk defends ketamine use, dismisses investor worries

Elon Musk suggested his use of drugs benefits Tesla investors in an interview released Monday, saying he takes prescribed ketamine to treat his “negative frame of mind.” The 52-year-old tycoon confirmed he takes the anesthetic — typically used for pain management and to treat depression — following reports in the US media that his drug use was spooking investors. “Ketamine is helpful for getting one outside out of a negative frame of mind,” Musk told […]

AI giant Nvidia unveils higher performing ‘superchip’

By Glenn CHAPMAN SAN JOSÉ, United States, March 18, 2024 (AFP) – Nvidia on Monday unveiled its latest family of chips for powering artificial intelligence, as it seeks to consolidate its position as the major supplier to the AI frenzy. “We need bigger GPUs. So ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to a very, very big GPU,” said CEO Jensen Huang at a developers conference in California, referring to the graphics processors […]