Ex-Google boss fears AI could be used by terrorists

Musk-led group makes $97.4bn bid for ChatGPT maker OpenAI

WASHINGTON — A consortium of investors led by Elon Musk offered $97.4bn to take over OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.The billionaire's attorney, Marc Toberoff, confirmed he submitted the bid for "all assets" of the tech company to its board on Monday.The offer is the latest twist in a longstanding battle between Musk, the world's richest man and right hand to US President Donald Trump, and Open AI chief executive Sam Altman over the future of the start-up at the center of the AI boom.In response to the bid, Altman posted on Musk's social media platform X: "no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."OpenAI is widely credited with helping bring artificial intelligence tools into the mainstream and sparking huge investment in the...

February 11, 2025

Musk-led group makes $97.4bn bid for ChatGPT maker OpenAI

$DeepSeek's developers say the chatbot was built at a fraction of the cost of rivals such as ChatGPT$

China's DeepSeek AI shakes industry and dents America's swagger

SAN FRANCISCO — The speed at which the new Chinese AI app DeepSeek has shaken the technology industry, the markets and the bullish sense of American superiority in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has been nothing short of stunning.Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen may have said it best. "DeepSeek-R1 is AI's Sputnik moment," he posted to X on Sunday, referring to the satellite that kicked off the space race.DeepSeek was the most downloaded free app on Apple's US App Store over the weekend. By Monday, the new AI chatbot had triggered a massive sell-off of major tech stocks which were in freefall as fears mounted over America's leadership in the sector.Shares of AI chip designer and recent Wall Street darling Nvidia, for example, had plunged by 17% by the...

January 28, 2025

China's DeepSeek AI shakes industry and dents America's swagger

OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank form joint venture to build artificial intelligence infrastructure

US tech giants announce AI plan worth up to $500bn

NEW YORK — OpenAI is teaming up with Oracle and Softbank to build data centers equipped to power artificial intelligence (AI), with plans to invest $100bn (£81bn) "immediately".Flanked by the bosses of the three companies at the White House, US President Donald Trump said the plan is a "resounding declaration of confidence in America's potential".OpenAI has previously called for major investments in infrastructure to support AI and pushed for government support of those plans.The ChatGPT-creator and Softbank said the joint venture, dubbed Stargate, intends to invest $500bn over the next four years."I think this will be the most important project of this era," said OpenAI's chief executive, Sam Altman."We wouldn't be able to do this without...

January 22, 2025

US tech giants announce AI plan worth up to $500bn

Close-up of Apple iPhone 16 held in a person's hand

Apple suspends error-strewn AI generated news alerts

WASHINGTON — Apple has suspended a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature that drew criticism and complaints for making repeated mistakes in its summaries of news headlines.The tech giant had been facing mounting pressure to withdraw the service, which sent notifications that appeared to come from within news organizations' apps."We are working on improvements and will make them available in a future software update," an Apple spokesperson said.The BBC was among the groups to complain, after an alert generated by Apple's AI falsely told some readers that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself.The feature had also inaccurately summarised headlines from Sky News, the New York Times and the Washington Post,...

January 17, 2025

Apple suspends error-strewn AI generated news alerts

'TikTok refugees' are streaming to Chinese app RedNote, where they have been welcomed with open arms

TikTok users flock to Chinese app RedNote as US ban looms

WASHINGTON — TikTok users in the US are migrating to a Chinese app called RedNote with the threat of a ban just days away.The move by users who call themselves "TikTok refugees" has made RedNote the most downloaded app on Apple's US App Store on Monday.RedNote is a TikTok competitor popular with young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking populations.It has about 300 million monthly users and looks like a combination of TikTok and Instagram. It allows users, mostly young urban women, to exchange lifestyle tips from dating to fashion.Supreme Court justices are due to rule on a law that set a 19 January deadline for TikTok to either sell its US operations or face a ban in the country.TikTok has repeatedly said that it will not sell its US business and its...

January 14, 2025

TikTok users flock to Chinese app RedNote as US ban looms

The CR450AF bullet train prototype shown on a track in Beijing

China unveils prototype for what could be the world’s fastest high-speed train

HONG KONG — China has revealed a prototype of its next-generation high-speed train, a vehicle it says is on track to be the world’s fastest.The CR450, which was unveiled in Beijing on December 29, had reached test speeds as high as 450 kilometers (281 miles) per hour and an operational speed of 400 kilometers (248.5 miles) per hour, according to China’s Ministry of Transport.Once in commercial service, it could be the fastest high-speed train in the world, surpassing China’s current CR400 model, which debuted in 2017 and operates at 350 kilometers (217 miles) per hour.The latest CR450 prototype has been hailed by its developers — CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles and CRRC Sifang Co., Ltd. — for its excellence in operational speed, energy efficiency, noise control, and braking...

January 01, 2025

China unveils prototype for what could be the world’s fastest high-speed train

Commonwealth Fusion Systems's tokamak, a donut-shaped machine used to create nuclear fusion, in Devens, Massachusetts, October 11, 2023

‘World’s first’ grid-scale nuclear fusion power plant announced in the US

WASHINGTON — If all goes to plan, Virginia will be the site of the world’s first grid-scale nuclear fusion power plant, able to harness this futuristic clean power and generate electricity from it by the early 2030s, according to an announcement Tuesday by the startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems.CFS, one of the largest and most-hyped nuclear fusion companies, will make a multibillion-dollar investment into building the facility near Richmond. When operational, the plant will be able to plug into the grid and produce 400 megawatts, enough to power around 150,000 homes, said its CEO Bob Mumgaard.“This will mark the first time fusion power will be made available in the world at grid scale,” Mumgaard said. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin welcomed the announcement, calling it “a historic...

December 19, 2024

‘World’s first’ grid-scale nuclear fusion power plant announced in the US

Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp back online after global outage

WASHINGTON — Users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all experienced connectivity issues on Wednesday evening due to a "technical issue", according to parent company Meta, before coming back online a few hours later.The website Downdetector, which provides information on problems with popular apps and websites, showed a spike in outages for all three services at around 7 pm Central European Time (CET).Mark Zuckerberg's Meta posted on social media site X that the company was working to "get things back to normal as quickly as possible".According to Downdetector, at the peak of the outage there had been just over 23,900 people reporting issues with access on Facebook, with most (72 percent) struggling to gain access via the app.The outage appeared to be global...

December 12, 2024

Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp back online after global outage

Google says it has cracked a quantum computing challenge with new chip

WASHINGTON — Google on Monday said that it has overcome a key challenge in quantum computing with a new generation of chip, solving a computing problem in five minutes that would take a classical computer more time than the history of the universe.Like other tech giants such as Microsoft and IBM, Alphabet’s Google is chasing quantum computing because it promises computing speeds far faster than today’s fastest systems. While the math problem solved by the company’s Santa Barbara, California, quantum lab does not have commercial applications, Google hopes quantum computers will one day solve problems in medicine, battery chemistry and artificial intelligence that are out of reach for today’s computers.The results released Monday came from a new chip called Willow that has 105...

December 10, 2024

Google says it has cracked a quantum computing challenge with new chip

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