Technology

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear Apple Inc’s bid to avoid paying about $440 million in damages for using patent licensing firm VirnetX Inc’s internet security technology without permission in features such as FaceTime video calling. The justices rejected Apple’s appeal in the long-running case in which a federal jury in 2016 found that Apple had …

HOUSTON, Texas — Volvo and Porsche are already doing it. Now, Nissan is getting in on the vehicle subscription service model with a new program called Nissan Switch. The service will debut in Houston. “Nissan Switch is another way that Nissan is testing alternatives to the notion of traditional mobility, without long-term financial commitments for our customers,” said Andrew Tavi, …

LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh will hear on Monday an application assailing the legitimacy of new social media regulations published by Ministry of Information, Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT). “The regulations prima facie appear to be illegal and ultra vires for contravening and exceeding the scope of Pakistan Telecommunication Reorganization Act, 1996 and the Prevention of Electronic …

Smartphone addiction does to your brain what drug addiction or substance abuse does, German researchers revealed in their recent study. In this age, it’s almost impossible to fathom a day without smartphones. Whether you need it to function as an alarm clock, a calendar, a messaging service or to get your daily news, smartphones have replaced many things in our …

It has been four years since the draconian Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) was passed, but confusion still reigns in the country over how to deal with harmful content on social media. On Feb 15, the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) — a group of internet companies, including giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google — wrote a letter to …

ISLAMABAD: As the clamour against the government’s move to regulate social media becomes louder, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), lawyers and civil society members have decided to launch a nationwide movement for getting the Citizens Protection (Against Online Harm) Rules revoked. Journalist unions, lawyers, and civil society organisations termed the recently notified rules unacceptable and urged the government …

WASHINGTON: US scientists announced they had created the first 3D atomic scale map of the part of the novel coronavirus that attaches to and infects human cells, a critical step toward developing vaccines and treatments. It came as the death toll from the COVID-19 virus jumped past 2,000, almost all of them in mainland China where 74,185 cases of infection …

TORONTO: On the shores of Lake Ontario, a Canadian start-up raised one of the earliest alarms about the risk posed by the mystery virus that emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan. How did it do it? Artificial intelligence. BlueDot has developed an algorithm that can sift through hundreds of thousands of news stories a day along with air traffic …

  ISLAMABAD: Amid growing criticism of newly introduced “curbs” on social media, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday directed the authorities concerned to take all stakeholders on board before implementing the new rules. Presiding over a meeting, the prime minister expressed the hope that all international social media and internet companies would continue to work in Pakistan and the government …

WASHINGTON: SpaceX successfully launched its latest cluster of high-speed internet satellites into orbit on Monday, but was unable to land its rocket booster on an autonomous ship, missing a key milestone. The private company founded by billionaire Elon Musk has revolutionised spaceflight in recent years by developing rockets capable of delivering their payload in space then flying back to Earth …