BRUSSELS Short video app TikTok said on Sunday it had immediately mobilised resources and personnel to counter hate

Around 500 employees at OpenAI have signed a letter demanding the company’s board resigns and reinstates dismissed chief executive Sam Altman, it has been reported. According to Wired, staff at the AI firm behind ChatGPT who have signed the letter have threatened to quit and join Mr Altman in his new venture at Microsoft unless he is allowed to return to the company. The report says the letter claims the board’s decision to remove Mr Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman has jeopardised the company’s work and accuses the board of not having the competence to oversee the company. It calls for the board to resign and be replaced by two new lead independent directors, and adds that if their demands are not met, those who have signed the letter may choose to resign from the company and join Mr Altman and Mr Brockman in their new AI research team at Microsoft – which announced Mr Altman would be joining the company on Monday. According to reports, the letter has been signed by several senior members of staff at OpenAI, including Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief technology officer and one of the board members at the centre of the decision to initially remove Mr Altman. Mr Sutskever has since posted to X, formerly Twitter, that he “deeply regrets” his participation in the board’s action and that he would “do everything I can to reunite the company”. The demands from staff continue an extraordinary few days for the company, which announced the shock decision to dismiss Mr Altman on Friday, with the board saying in a statement it “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI”, but not revealing any specific reasons for his dismissal. Reports emerged over the weekend suggesting Mr Altman was in discussions with OpenAI about quickly returning as chief executive, but these talks were said to have broken down on Sunday, before Microsoft – OpenAI’s largest investor – announced Mr Altman was joining a new advanced AI research team at the company in a post on Monday morning. OpenAI has since offered the chief executive role to former Twitch boss Emmett Shear, who said he had agreed to join the company. A number of OpenAI staff took to social media on Monday to post the same message: “OpenAI is nothing without its people”, in a first sign of ongoing discontent inside the firm. Read More Microsoft hires ousted OpenAI boss Sam Altman OpenAI in talks to bring Sam Altman back days after CEO ouster, reports say OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman ousted as CEO

Experts have discovered a fluffy “alien” planet where it rains sand in stunning new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. The bizarre-looking planet is officially known as exoplanet WASP-107b and has a cloud of silicate sand that exists high within its atmosphere giving it its strange fluffy appearance. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been responsible for some astounding findings since it was launched in 2021, including a mysterious galaxy shaped like a question mark. Now, observations made by the telescope have been used by experts who have been able to determine the atmospheric composition of the exoplanet that was pictured. A team of European astronomers found that water vapour, sulfur dioxide and silicate sand clouds existed in the exoplanet’s diverse atmosphere. The exoplanet WASP-107b is one of the lowest-density planets that astronomers are aware of. To put it into context, it is the same size as Jupiter, but has just 12 per cent of Jupiter’s mass. Thanks to its low density, it has allowed scientists to take a deeper look into the planet’s atmosphere, exploring 50 times deeper than would be possible with denser planets. The discovery of sulfur dioxide was a surprise because the host star it orbits only emits a small amount of high-energy light photons. But, its low-density atmosphere allows the photons to penetrate WASP-107b’s atmosphere where the chemical reaction that creates sulfur dioxide can occur. They also discovered that it essentially rains sand on the exoplanet due to the presence of clouds high in the atmosphere made up of fine silicate particles. Experts believe the clouds of sand form in the same way as rain does on Earth as the droplets continually fall and condense back into cloud form. The lead author of the study, Leen Decin from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, explained: “JWST is revolutionizing exoplanet characterisation, providing unprecedented insights at remarkable speed.” She added: “The discovery of clouds of sand, water, and sulfur dioxide on this fluffy exoplanet… is a pivotal milestone. It reshapes our understanding of planetary formation and evolution, shedding new light on our own solar system.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

TOKYO Japan plans to create tax breaks for domestically-made electric vehicle (EV) batteries and semiconductors from April 2024

Twitter has rebranded to X as part of Elon Musk’s plan to create an “everything app”. The tech billionaire, who took over the platform in October 2022, launched the new logo over the weekend after crowdsourcing ideas for users. He also reportedly informed employees by email that Twitter would become X, as well as redirected the domain X.com to Twitter.com. Mr Musk said Twitter’s famous blue bird logo would eventually be phased out entirely. Linda Yaccarino, who Mr Musk hired to be the chief executive of Twitter last month, confirmed the switch in a series of tweets late on Sunday. “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression,” she wrote. “Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.” Ms Yaccarino described the app as the “future state of unlimited interactivity”, incorporating audio, video, messaging, payments and banking. “There’s absolutely no limit to this transformation,” she added. “X will be the platform that can deliver, well... everything.” Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester, said on Sunday that the move would further alienate Twitter’s original, and once fiercely loyal, user base. “On the one hand, you can make the argument he would be getting rid of an iconic brand. On the other hand, he is signalling it is a new day for what was once Twitter and that the company is heading in a different direction with a different user base.” Mr Musk said in a Sunday post he wanted to change Twitter’s logo and polled his millions of followers whether they would favour changing the site’s colour scheme from blue to black. He posted a picture of a stylized X against a black outer space-themed background. “And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” he said. Under Mr Musk’s tumultuous tenure since he bought Twitter in October, the company has changed its business name to X Corp, reflecting the billionaire’s vision to create a “super app” like China’s WeChat. In April, Twitter’s legacy blue bird logo was temporarily replaced by Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu dog, helping drive a surge in the cryptocurrency’s market value. The company came under widespread criticism from users and marketing professionals when Musk announced early this month that Twitter would limit how many tweets per day various accounts can read. The daily limits helped Meta Platforms-owned rival service Threads, which crossed 100 million sign-ups within five days of its 5 July launch. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment about the latest changes. Additional reporting from agencies Read More TikTok is now most favourable single source of news in UK teenagers, research shows Apple’s next iPhone may include new battery technology, report suggests DMs may come to Threads soon as app’s user base grows to one-fifth of Twitter’s Battery breakthroughs are about to trigger a transport revolution

Industries that account for over a third of greenhouse gas emissions are the target of a new initiative

By Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean flatscreen maker LG Display on Wednesday flagged a return to

City Skylines 2 has different release dates for consoles and PC.

(Reuters) -U.S.-China tensions over semiconductors began with the Trump administration's trade war and have ratcheted up under President Joe Biden's

Lawyers who sued Facebook over user privacy violations are seeking $180 million in attorneys fees — a sum

A private jet used by Elon Musk arrived in Beijing on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after it was confirmed that the Tesla boss would be visiting China this week for the first time in three years. More follows

TL;DR: As of June 7, the OMNIA M+ MagSafe Wireless Charging Station and A1 Apple