Sci-Tech

X users report global outage: monitoring site

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 21, 2023 (AFP) – Tens of thousands of global users of X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday reported problems using the Elon Musk-owned social network. Reports of the platform’s troubles began spiking just before 0600 GMT on monitoring site Downdetector. “User reports indicate problems at X (Twitter),” the site said. Timelines on the platform were emptied and no new posts visible, although the twitter.com site was available. With no way to post on […]

US bans pharmacy Rite Aid from facial recognition use

WASHINGTON, Dec 19, 2023 (AFP) – Pharmacy group Rite Aid was ordered Tuesday to stop using facial recognition for the next five years by a US regulator, which said the company falsely identified consumers as shoplifters using the technology. The case touches on one of the main concerns about the proliferation of artificial intelligence, and facial recognition in particular, which is deemed to potentially misidentify or discriminate against individuals, especially non-whites and women. “Rite Aid’s […]

French hybrid electric plane picks up US order

French start-up Aura Aero announced Tuesday that US regional airline JSX has signed a letter of intent to purchase 50 of its hybrid-electric planes. The deal, which includes an option for a further 100 aircraft, takes to nearly 500 the number of the 19-seater Electric Regional Aircraft (ERA). The aircraft, which sports eight propellors and can take off on battery power, aims to deliver an 80-percent reduction in CO2 emissions from current regional aircraft. The […]

OpenAI releases guidelines to gauge ‘catastrophic risks’ of AI

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI published Monday its newest guidelines for gauging “catastrophic risks” from artificial intelligence in models currently being developed. The announcement comes one month after the company’s board fired CEO Sam Altman, only to hire him back a few days later when staff and investors rebelled. According to US media, board members had criticized Altman for favoring the accelerated development of OpenAI, even if it meant sidestepping certain questions about its tech’s possible risks. In […]

Blue Origin returns to space after year-long hiatus

By Issam AHMED Blue Origin launched its first rocket in more than a year on Tuesday, reviving the US company’s fortunes with a successful return to space following an uncrewed crash in 2022. Though mission NS-24 carried a payload of science experiments, not people, it paves the way for Jeff Bezos’ aerospace enterprise to resume taking wealthy thrill-seekers to the final frontier. The New Shepard suborbital rocket blasted off from the pad at Launch Site […]

Meta accused of mishandling Israel-Hamas war posts

NEW YORK, Dec 19, 2023 (AFP) – Meta’s independent oversight board on Tuesday criticized the social media titan of removing posts that showed human suffering in the Middle East conflict. The board, set up by Meta in 2020 as a supreme court of sorts for the social media titan, overturned two post removal decisions, and urged the company to respond more quickly to changing circumstances in the war between Hamas and Israel. One case involved […]

The feline frontier: NASA sends cat video from deep space

By Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, Dec 18, 2023 (AFP) – NASA on Monday announced it had used a state-of-the-art laser communication system on a spaceship 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away from Earth — to send a high-definition cat video. The 15-second meow-vie featuring an orange tabby named Taters is the first to be streamed from deep space, and demonstrates it’s possible to transmit the higher-data-rate communications needed to support complex missions such as sending […]

EU launches ‘illegal content’ probe into Elon Musk’s X

BRUSSELS, Dec 18, 2023 (AFP) – The EU on Monday announced “formal infringement proceedings” against Elon Musk’s X platform under a law cracking down on illegal online content, after identifying disinformation related to Hamas’s October 7 attack in Israel. The action against the company formerly known as Twitter is the first against a major online platform since Brussels implemented the Digital Services Act (DSA), a sweeping piece of European Union legislation that strengthens online companies’ […]

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin headed back into space after accident

By Lucie AUBOURG WASHINGTON, Dec 18, 2023 (AFP) – The American company Blue Origin plans to launch its rocket Big Shepard Monday for the first time since an accident more than a year ago, as the firm founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos heads back into space. The launch window from the pad in west Texas opens at 8:30 am local time (14H30 GMT), said Blue Origin, which plans to live stream the event. This mission […]

Meta rolls out Twitter rival Threads in the EU

By Raziye Akkoc BRUSSELS, Dec 14, 2023 (AFP) – Facebook owner Meta’s text-based app Threads arrived in the European Union on Thursday, months after its global launch in July, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. Threads is a spin-off of the Instagram photo app and is intended to be a rival to X, formerly known as Twitter, after that platform alienated many users and advertisers following Elon Musk’s purchase last year. “Today we’re opening Threads to […]

US identifies use of AI as risk in financial system

WASHINGTON, Dec 14, 2023 (AFP) – US regulators have identified the use of artificial intelligence as a vulnerability in the financial system for the first time, according to a report released on Thursday. There is a need to monitor “rapid developments in AI, including generative AI, to ensure that oversight structures keep up with or stay ahead of emerging risks to the financial system,” said the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) in its annual report. […]

OpenAI to pay Axel Springer to use journalism in ChatGPT

Axel Springer said Wednesday it was partnering up with the maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI, which will pay the German media group to include its journalism in responses generated by the chatbot. “ChatGPT users around the world will receive summaries of selected global news content from Axel Springer’s media brands,” which include news site Politico and German tabloid Bild, the two companies said in a statement. The chatbot’s answers would include material otherwise kept behind a […]