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Alibaba Cloud announces steepest price cut in race for AI customers China's Alibaba Cloud on Thursday said it will slash prices of some of its products by as much as 55%, its most severe price cut to date, amid intensifying competition to attract heavy users, particularly artificial intelligence software developers. This would be the second time the cloud arm of Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding has cut prices in less than a year after reductions of as much as 50% in April. The cloud service provider said it will lower prices of over 100 products by an average of 20%. The price cuts constitute Alibaba's latest effort to persuade developers to build data-intensive AI models and applications using its cloud services. Rivals including Tencent Holdings and Huawei Technologies, which also cut cloud prices last year following Alibaba's lead, have offered a number of promotions to convince tech firms to develop AI within their ecosystems. "We decided to launch...

Apple to disclose AI plans later this year, CEO Tim Cook says  Apple plans to disclose more about its plans to put generative artificial intelligence to use later this year, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said during the company's annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday. Cook said that the iPhone maker sees "incredible breakthrough potential for generative AI, which is why we're currently investing significantly in this area. We believe that will unlock transformative opportunities for users when it comes to productivity, problem solving and more." Apple has been slower in rolling out generative AI, which can generate human-like responses to written prompts, than rivals such as Microsoft, and Alphabet's Google, which are weaving them into products. On Wednesday, Cook argued that AI is already at work behind the scenes in Apple's products but said there would be more news on explicit AI features later this year. Bloomberg previously reported Apple plans to ...

Meta's Zuckerberg discusses mixed reality devices, AI with LG leaders in South Korea Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday met LG Electronics (066570.KS), opens new tab executives to discuss a stronger partnership in extended reality (XR) devices as well as potential cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI), LG said. Zuckerberg arrived in South Korea late on Tuesday and is widely expected to hold talks on AI and meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol and heads of the country's technology powerhouses. He held discussions with LG Electronics CEO William Cho and parent company LG Corp (003550.KS), opens new tab COO Kwon Bong-seok about business strategy related to next-generation XR device development, LG Electronics said in a statement. Cho also expressed interest in Meta's large language model-based AI technology and discussed possible on-device AI cooperation, his company said. Cho has previously said LG Electronics is looking for opportuni...

Abu Dhabi sovereign fund to invest space tech, AI this year Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Co will deploy significant capital into artificial intelligence and space technology this year, its managing director said on Wednesday, committing the sovereign wealth fund to investing more in the United States. Khaldoon Mubarak told an investor conference in Abu Dhabi that sovereign wealth funds had an opportunity and responsibility to transform from asset investors to enablers of global progress. "We plan to invest more in the US market and deepen strategic and forward-looking investment products in the UK, Europe, France," he said. Mubadala, which controls $276 billion of assets, would also invest in healthcare, digital infrastructure and financing this year, Mubarak said, and had increased long-term allocations for Asia. "We are in the business of driving progress and investing in solutions to global challenges," he said. The government-controlled fund was also sc...

Google steps up Microsoft criticism, warns of rival's monopoly in cloud Alphabet's Google Cloud on Monday ramped up its criticism of Microsoft's cloud computing practices, saying its rival is seeking a monopoly that would harm the development of emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence. Microsoft and Amazon have recently attracted scrutiny in Britain, the European Union and the United States over their market power in cloud computing. Google trails a distant third behind the two leaders. Microsoft's collaboration with ChatGPT creator OpenAI has also ratcheted up the concerns. "We worry about Microsoft wanting to flex their decade-long practices where they had a lot of monopoly on the on-premise software before and now they are trying to push that into cloud now," Google Cloud Vice President Amit Zavery said in an interview. "So they are creating this whole walled garden, which is completely controlled and owned by Microsoft, and ...

Samsung to display the Galaxy Ring for the first time Samsung has finally announced the first public display of its much-rumoured Galaxy Ring, which will be showcased this week at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. Just last month, Samsung confirmed the news of its upcoming smart ring in a teaser video concluding its Unpacked event. This, however, is the first time the gadget will be shown to the public; it is unclear if it will be placed in a glass show-case cabinet. The post stated; Read: Meta to set up team to counter disinformation, AI abuse in EU elections "Samsung will be displaying its intelligent health lineup at MWC, offering users even more personalized and seamless health experiences with the transformative power of AI, across even more devices. As part of this portfolio, Galaxy Ring is being unveiled as a new health form factor that simplifies everyday wellness, supporting smarter and healthier living via a more connected digital wellness platform ...

Meta to set up team to counter disinformation, AI abuse in EU elections  Facebook owner Meta will set up a team to tackle disinformation and the abuse of generative artificial intelligence in the run-up to European Parliament elections in June amid concerns about election interference and misleading AI-generated content. The rapid growth of generative AI, which can create text, images and video in seconds in response to prompts, has triggered fears that the new technology could be used to disrupt major elections, opens new tab across the world this year. European Parliament elections will take place June 6-9. Its 720 lawmakers, together with EU governments, pass new EU policies and laws. "As the election approaches, we'll activate an Elections Operations Center to identify potential threats and put mitigations in place in real time," Marco Pancini, Meta's head of EU affairs, said in a blogpost. He said experts from the company's intelligence, data science, engin...

China's Honor globally launches AI-enhanced Magic 6 Pro smartphone Chinese technology company Honor on Sunday globally launched its new Magic 6 Pro smartphone and showcased an experimental eye-tracking AI function that enables users to remotely open and move their car just by looking at their phone screen. The tool is already available in China and the company is working to integrate it commercially overseas. Honor, sold by Huawei Technologies [RIC:RIC:HWT.UL] in November 2020, and now belonging to state-owned Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co, had until Sunday released its new phone exclusively in China. Tech and telecom companies are releasing new products and features ahead of the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona set to kick off Monday, hoping the buzz around generative AI will boost business prospects. Makers of smartphones hope the excitement around AI will help boost a sluggish market for smartphones, though many experts say generative AI may rais...

Canadian federal police says they were targeted by cyberattack Canadian federal police said on Friday their systems were targeted by an "alarming" cyberattack but there was no impact on operations and no known threat to the safety of Canadians. "The situation is evolving quickly but at this time, there is no impact on RCMP operations and no known threat to the safety and security of Canadians," a spokesperson for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told reporters on Friday afternoon. "While a breach of this magnitude is alarming, the quick work and mitigation strategies put in place demonstrate the significant steps the RCMP has taken to detect and prevent these types of threats," the spokesperson added. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they launched a probe into the attack and were trying to determine the extent of the breach, adding there were no known impacts on intelligence services. Further details were not immediately known. The Canadian govern...

Bezos, Nvidia join OpenAI in funding humanoid robot startup Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Nvidia and other big technology names are investing in startup Figure AI that develops human-like robots, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people with knowledge of the situation. Figure AI, also backed by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft, is raising about $675 million in a funding round that carries a pre-money valuation of about $2 billion, according to the report. Bezos had committed $100 million through his firm Explore Investments LLC and Microsoft is investing $95 million, while Nvidia and an Amazon-affiliated fund are each providing $50 million, the report added. Investments in artificial intelligence startups have sparked after the launch of OpenAI's viral chatbot ChatGPT in November 2022, as investors sense an opportunity, betting on these startups that they might outpace bigger rivals. OpenAI, which at one point considered acquiring Figure, is investing $5 million, ...

Sony is working on official PC support for PS VR2 Sony is seeking to make its PlayStation virtual reality headset supportable on PCs, for a unique gaming experience. The company said it was "currently testing the ability for PS VR2 players to access additional games on PC to offer even more game variety in addition to the PS VR2 titles available through PS5." Hoping to roll out later this year, Sony intends to meet the needs of gamers, who had been resorting to using SteamVR for PC gaming. The company has, as of yet, only released three VR experiences for the platform since its debut, with no announcement of any future games on the way. Read: Meta's Oversight Board includes Threads under its purview The VR headset, has thus, a limited library of gaming titles to play, while notable game developers have not shown any intention to make PS VR2 versions of their games. However, PC compatibility with the headset will enable gamers to tap into a wider selection of games, incl...

Meta tests cross-posting from Facebook to Threads Meta Platform is reportedly testing out cross-platform posting, allowing Facebook users to simultaneously post on Threads, a feature available for Instagram and Threads posts. While the company confirmed it was testing out the feature, it was limited to iOS applications and excluded EU. The feature will allow users to share both text and link posts from Facebook to Threads. The integration creates seamless posting for content creators, while encouraging Facebook users to also try out Threads. Read: Apple rolls out iMessage upgrade to withstand decryption by quantum computers The feature was spotted by Threads user, @whimchic (Ljiljana Grujicic) who tested out the feature on her profile. The post, however, didn't include any account information from Facebook or a flag that it was cross-posted. Previously, Threads users were annoyed when they discovered their Threads post were automatically being shared on Facebook and Instagram wit...

Intel signs Microsoft as foundry customer, says on track to overtake TSMC  Intel said on Wednesday that Microsoft plans to use its services to manufacture a custom computing chip and that the company expects to beat an internal deadline of 2025 to overtake its biggest rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, in advanced chip manufacturing. The chipmaker also gave new details on how it plans to maintain a lead over TSMC into 2026 and beyond. Intel made the disclosures at an event in San Jose, California, at the first technology conference for Intel Foundry, the contract manufacturing operation it established to compete with TSMC. Intel says it plans to retake the mantle of making the world's fastest chips from TSMC later this year with what it calls Intel 18A manufacturing technology and extend that lead into 2026 with new technology called Intel 14A. It said Microsoft will use its 18A technology to make an undisclosed chip and that it now expects $15 billion of fou...

Apple rolls out iMessage upgrade to withstand decryption by quantum computers  Apple is rolling out an upgrade to its iMessage texting platform to defend against future encryption-breaking technologies. The new protocol, known as PQ3, is another sign that US tech firms are bracing for a potential future breakthrough in quantum computing that could make current methods of protecting users’ communications obsolete. “More than simply replacing an existing algorithm with a new one, we rebuilt the iMessage cryptographic protocol from the ground up,” an Apple blog post published on Wednesday reads. “It will fully replace the existing protocol within all supported conversations this year.” The Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker says its encryption algorithms are state-of-the-art and that it has found no evidence so far of a successful attack on them. Still, government officials and scientists are concerned that the advent of quantum computers, advanced machines that tap ...

Apple says iPhone 15 batteries will have longer lifespan Apple has recently shared that the iPhone 15 series will have an updated battery cycle lifespan, in addition to changes in battery health in iOS 17.4. Initially, Apple stated that the iPhone 15 could retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles. Now, it can retain 80% of its original capacity at 1000 complete charge cycles. According to Apple, its testing included charging and discharging the battery 1,000 times under specific circumstances, representing common use cases. The improved battery life is due to the company's consistent updates to battery components and power management systems over the years. Read: Neuralink's first human patient able to control mouse through thinking, Musk says The change in battery lifecycle only applies to iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Older iPhone models can only retain 80% capacity at 500 complete charge cycles, but the comp...

Transform your bad webcam quality with Camo 2.0 Most laptops feature a rather bad built-in webcam that makes videos appear blurry with bad pixelated images, ruining much of video-conferencing and Zoom meetings. The Camo 2.0 transforms your laptop's camera to make it seem like you're streaming from a professional camera. Camo is a downloadable app for Windows and Mac that improves the webcam installed with tools, filters, and settings you can use for the perfect image. The app essentially uses your phone as a webcam while using your laptop, offering you a range of options to manually control the image being transmitted. With this app, users can adjust brightness and saturation levels, add filters, overlays, and control resolution. Control the flash option for more lighting while adjusting the frame for a zoomed-in or pan-view look. The latest update, 2.0, introduces green-screen mode, which will blur everything behind the subject, with an additional portrait mode option for we...

Don't place wet iPhone in rice, Apple document says While the recent models of iPhones have better water resistance capabilities, they are still prone to water damage, followed by the internet's popular advice of placing it into a bowl of rice to dry it out. A new supported document by Apple spotted by Macworld, however, refutes the advice and advises against it. The document specifically tells users not to dry their device using an external heat source or compressed air, nor inserting a foreign object into the connector like a paper towel or cotton swab. Most importantly, placing devices in a bag of rice could allow small particles to damage the phone further. Read: Lockbit cybercrime gang disrupted by Britain, US and EU According to Apple, if the device is damaged by water, the best method is to tap your iPhone gently against your hand with the connector facing down to remove excess liquid. The phone should be left to dry in a dry area with some airflow. After 30 minutes of...

Lockbit cybercrime gang disrupted by Britain, US and EU Lockbit, a notorious cybercrime gang that holds its victims' data to ransom, has been disrupted in a rare international law enforcement operation, the gang and US and UK authorities said on Monday. The operation was run by Britain’s National Crime Agency, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol and a coalition of international police agencies, according to a post on the gang’s extortion website. "This site is now under the control of the National Crime Agency of the UK, working in close cooperation with the FBI and the international law enforcement task force, ‘Operation Cronos’," the post said. An NCA spokesperson and a US Department of Justice spokesperson confirmed that the agencies had disrupted the gang and said the operation was "ongoing and developing". Officials in the United States, where Lockbit has hit more than 1,700 organisations in nearly every industry from financial services and fo...

Microsoft to expand its AI infrastructure in Spain with $2.1 billion investment US  software giant Microsoft will expand its artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud infrastructure in Spain through an investment of $2.1 billion in the next two years, the company's Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said in a post on social media site X. The move comes on the heels of its announcement of a 3.2 billion euros ($3.45 billion) AI-focused investment in Germany, spanning the next two years. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for further details on the investment in Spain. "Our investment is beyond just building data centers, it's a testament to our 37-year commitment to Spain, its security, and development and digital transformation of its government, businesses, and people," Smith said.  

Social media platform X faces more disruptions in Pakistan Popular microblogging site ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, had its services disrupted in Pakistan on Monday for the third consecutive day. Users nationwide have grappled with prolonged inaccessibility to the platform, marking yet another glitch in internet instability in the weeks leading up to, during, and after the hotly-contested February 8 national elections. According to Downdetector, X services were disrupted at around 1pm. The social media platform also experienced outages earlier in the day, it was reportedly not accessible around 10:30am and services were restored around noon.  This is the third consecutive day of disruptions, which started soon after the now-former commissioner Rawalpindi alleged rigging and irregularities during the February 8 polls and said he played a part in the process. Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatha took responsibility for what he termed a "heinous crime," and im...

OpenAI, Meta and other tech giants sign effort to fight AI election interference A group of 20 tech companies announced on Friday they have agreed to work together to prevent deceptive artificial-intelligence content from interfering with elections across the globe this year. The rapid growth of generative artificial intelligence (AI), which can create text, images and video in seconds in response to prompts, has heightened fears that the new technology could be used to sway major elections this year, as more than half of the world's population is set to head to the polls. Signatories of the tech accord, which was announced at the Munich Security Conference, include companies that are building generative AI models used to create content, including OpenAI, Microsoft and Adobe  . Other signatories include social media platforms that will face the challenge of keeping harmful content off their sites, such as Meta Platforms, TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter. The...

Google touts AI to vet troves of content in seconds; CEO predicts profit Reading "War and Peace," Leo Tolstoy's monumental novel that runs half a million words long and often over 1,000 pages, might be a minute-long affair for a new artificial intelligence model from Google. The Alphabet-owned company on Thursday showcased Gemini 1.5, an upgrade to its suite of AI models it announced two months ago. In a single prompt, a user can ask Google's AI to analyze vastly more content than before -- 30,000 lines of code, 11 hours of audio, a whole hour of video, Google said. That's for Pro, the family's mid-sized model. In concrete terms, Pro can process 1 million pieces of data known as tokens -- five times the amount that Anthropic, perhaps the closet competitor in this regard, handles in a query of its Claude 2.1 technology. Reuters was unable to independently test the claims. Google's increasingly voracious AI, on the heels of releases by ChatGPT's creato...

Apple plans AI-based code completion tool  Apple plans to launch an artificial intelligence tool for completing lines of software code, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. The tool would be similar to Microsoft's Copilot, which can complete lines and blocks of code based on the first parts of the code typed in by a developer, the news service reported. Apple could include the feature in its Xcode software as early as this year. Apple gives away Xcode for free to software developers but charges $99 per year to submit apps to its app stores. Bloomberg also reported that Apple is planning other AI features in its products, such as the ability to automatically create Apple Music playlists and slide decks in its business presentation software. The news service said a new version of Apple's "Spotlight" search feature on its devices could dig deeper into apps to control specific features of the apps. Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment.  

Bitcoin market cap crosses $1 trillion as buyers flood in The total value invested in bitcoin surpassed $1 trillion on Wednesday for the first time since November 2021 as inflows to US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds continued to support cryptocurrency prices. Bitcoin's price reached as high as $52,079 on Wednesday, its latest 25-month high. It was last up 4.29% at $51,690, taking the token's market cap to $1.013 trillion according to price platform Coingecko. The world's largest cryptocurrency has risen around 22% since the start of February, already set for its biggest monthly rise since October. Strong inflows to new US listed ETFs have driven some of the price action in recent weeks, say analysts, and capital flows into the 11 US spot bitcoin ETFs increased to $1.64 billion in the week to Wednesday, LSEG Lipper data showed. The previous five trading sessions saw inflows of $409 million to the products, which received regulatory approval and began trading in January...

TikTok to ramp up fight against fake news, covert influence ahead of EU elections ByteDance-owned social media platform TikTok said on Wednesday it will ramp up its fight against fake news and covert influence operations in the run-up to European Parliament elections in June with a local language app in all 27 countries. Tiktok said the individual local language "election centres" build on work it first started in 2021, which accelerated last year when Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Spain went to the polls. The app is designed to better inform Europeans about the electoral process. Governments and politicians around the world are concerned about the spread of misinformation and the use of AI-generated deepfakes to influence elections and especially the role of social media platforms. Some 30% of European Parliament lawmakers use TikTok, the company said. "Next month, we will launch a local language Election Centre in-app for each of the 27 individual EU ...