List of All Articles with Tag 'tec'

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. will make artificial intelligence and user experience its top strategic priorities, its new chief

By Noel Randewich and Hannah Lang (Reuters) -Retail traders getting their first bite at Arm Holdings' highly anticipated public offering

MGM Resorts International said it has identified a cyberattack that is affecting some of the company’s systems. The

Oracle Corp. reported cloud sales growth that slowed in the quarter, dimming enthusiasm about the software maker’s expansion

The Canadian government on Monday announced new licence conditions requiring mobile carriers to provide all of Toronto's subway

MGM Resorts has shut down some of its systems as a result of a "cybersecurity issue," according to a company social media post on Monday.

Researchers have invented a new battery that they claim could have profound implications for the future of energy storage and renewable technologies. The lithium-based redox-flow battery, developed by a team at the University of Cincinnati, could prove crucial for wind and solar operations, where large-scale batteries are needed to store energy during times of overproduction and release it when production drops off. “Energy generation and energy consumption is always mismatched,” said Jimmy Jiang, who led the research at the University of Cincinnati. “That’s why it’s important to have a device that can store that energy temporarily and release it when it’s needed.” The novel design removes the membrane that separates the positive and negative sides of the battery, which is one of the most expensive parts of this type of battery and has previously hindered development. The membrane-free battery exhibited high voltage and energy density that could potentially meet the demands of large-scale green energy operations at an economically viable cost for the first time. “This design significantly decreases material costs,” said Soumalya Sinha, a visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati who was involved in the research. “We’re trying to achieve the same performance at a cheaper cost.” The team has submitted patent applications for the design, which Dr Jiang said will herald a “battery revolution” within the next 20 years. “I am confident about that,” he said. “There is a lot of intense research going into pushing the boundaries of battery performance.” The research was detailed in a paper, titled ‘Development of high-voltage and high-energy membrane-free nonaqueous lithium-based organic redox flow batteries’, published in the journal Nature Communications. Read More Volcano discovery could power electric cars for decades, scientists say

A plan to reboot a new version of defunct crypto exchange FTX Group may emerge as soon as

Google and the US Justice Department are beginning what might be the most decisive tech trial in a generation. The lawsuit could have substantial consequences – not only for the search giant, but for its rivals such as Apple and Meta, and the technology industry more broadly. The antitrust trial will examine claims from critics that Google has unfairly used its power to become dominant in a variety of parts of technology, in particular its search engine. The United States will argue Google didn’t play by the rules in its efforts to dominate online search in a trial seen as a battle for the soul of the Internet. The US Justice Department is expected to detail how Google paid billions of dollars annually to device makers like Apple, wireless companies like AT&T and browser makers like Mozilla to keep Google‘s search engine atop the leader board. DuckDuckGo has also complained, for example, that removing Google as the default search engine on a device and replacing it with DuckDuckGo takes too many steps, helping keep them to a measly 2.3% market share. DuckDuckGo, Microsoft and Yahoo are among a long list of Google competitors who will be watching the trial closely. “Google makes it unduly difficult to use DuckDuckGo by default. We’re glad this issue is finally going to have its day in court,” said DuckDuckGo spokesman Kamyl Bazbaz who said thatGoogle had a “stranglehold on major distribution points for more than a decade.” Google has denied wrongdoing and is prepared to vigorously defend itself. The legal fight has huge implications for Big Tech, which has been accused of buying or strangling small competitors but has insulated itself against many accusations of breaking antitrust law because the services the companies provide to users are free, as in the case of Alphabet’s Google and Facebook, or low price, as in the case of Amazon.com. “It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this case, particularly for monopolies and companies with significant market share,” antitrust lawyer Luke Hasskamp told Reuters. “This will be a major case, particularly for the major tech companies of the world (Google, Apple, Twitter, and others), which have grown to have an outsized role in nearly all our lives,” he added. Previous antitrust trials of similar importance include Microsoft, filed in 1998, and AT&T, filed in 1974. The AT&T breakup in 1982 is credited with paving the way for the modern cell phone industry while the fight with Microsoft is credited with opening space for Google and others on the internet. Congress tried to rein in Big Tech last year but largely missed. It considered bills to check the market power of the companies, like legislation to prevent them from preferencing their own products, but failed to pass the most aggressive of them. Big Tech’s rivals now pin their hope on Judge Amit Mehta, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit that goes to trial was brought by former President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. In a rare show of bipartisan agreement, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has pressed on with the lawsuit and filed a second one against Google in January focused on advertising technology. Judge Mehta will decide if Google has broken antitrust law in this first trial, and, if so, what should be done. The government has asked the judge to order Google to stop any illegal activity but also urged “structural relief as needed,” raising the possibility that the tech giant could be ordered broken up. The government’s strongest arguments are those against Google‘s revenue sharing agreements with Android makers, which requires Google to be the only search on the smartphone in exchange for a percentage of search advertising revenue, said Daniel McCuaig, a partner at Cohen Milstein who was formerly with the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More AI can help generate synthetic viruses and spark pandemics, warns ex-Google executive Google boss says he wants to make people ‘shrug’ How Google reshaped the world – and is about to do it all over again AI is using vast amounts of water Elon Musk says monkeys implanted with Neuralink brain chips were ‘close to death’ Volcano discovery could power electric cars for decades, scientists say

Bitcoin briefly dropped below $25,000 for the first time in three months, while speculation that FTX could begin

Artificial intelligence is using gallons upon gallons of water. Microsoft alone used more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water in its data centres last year. The latest numbers are leading to yet more questions about the sustainability and environmental dangers of the growth of artificial intelligence and related technology. Artificial intelligence requires vast computing resources, undertaking deeply complex calculations on behalf of people around the world. AI systems tend to be run in the cloud rather than on individual people’s computers, meaning that companies running them must operate vast server farms to deal with the queries of their users. Those server farms in turn need to pump in water to cool themselves down, because of the heat generated by those computers. That has long been a concern for environmentalists, but the sharp growth in artificial intelligence has led to even more use. Microsoft’s water consumption rose 34 per cent between 2021 and 2022, according to its latest environmental report, highlighted by the Associated Press. It was up to almost 1.7 billion gallons. Not all of that is from artificial intelligence. But Shaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside working to better understand the environmental impact of AI told the AP that the “majority of the growth” is because of the technology. Google also said that its water use had increased by 20 per cent over the same period. That varied across its different data centres, which are based in different parts of the US. For each 5 to 50 prompts, or questions, put to ChatGPT, it uses 500 millilitres of water, according to a paper that will be published by Professor Ren and his team later this year. Many technology companies have expressed concerns about their own water use, and how to minimise any negative effects of their data centres. The environmental concerns can be especially pressing because the use of water can be focused in particular areas around a data centre, meaning that the damage may not be spread. Google said last year for instance that “Wherever we use water, we are committed to doing so responsibly”. That includes analysing where water is being used and how much stress it might put on the surrounding area, for instance. Read More AI can help generate synthetic viruses and spark pandemics, warns ex-Google executive China’s ‘government-approved’ AI chatbot says Taiwan invasion likely Google launches AI to go to meetings for you

BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators have delayed their investigation into Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition of robot vacuum cleaner maker