Technology

SAN FRANCISCO: Google on Wednesday released new artificial intelligence (AI) models that outside developers potentially can fashion as their own, following a similar move by Meta Platforms and others. The Alphabet subsidiary said individuals and businesses can build AI software based on its new family of “open models” called Gemma, for free. The company is making key technical data such …

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to fully restore the services of social media platform X (formerly Twitter) across the country. X remains disrupted in many areas of Pakistan for the sixth consecutive day. According to monitoring website Downdetector, the disruptions were reported in Rawalpindi, Karachi, Gujranwala and Lahore among other cities. During a …

KARACHI: Researchers have found the brightest object in the universe, which is 500 trillion times brighter than the Sun. According to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the newly discovered quasar is the most luminous object ever observed, and it is powered by a massive blackhole which is eating a mass equivalent to one Sun per day, making it the fastest-growing …

LONDON: An international operation led by the UK and US law enforcement agencies has severely disrupted “the world’s most harmful cybercrime group”, the Russian-linked ransomware specialist LockBit, officials announced on Tuesday. LockBit and its affiliates have targeted governments, major companies, schools and hospitals, causing billions of dollars of damage and extracting tens of millions in ransoms from victims. Britain’s National …

For biofuels to compete with petroleum, biorefinery operations must be designed to better utilize lignin. Lignin is one of the main components of plant cell walls. It provides plants with greater structural integrity and resiliency from microbial attacks. However, these natural properties of lignin also make it difficult to extract and utilize from the plant matter, also known as biomass. …

REMEMBER when making a video required bul equipment, a field force of camerapersons, an army of editors, sound designers, and countless other support staff? Probably not. For most of us, it meant taking out our phone to record, downloading to make the edits and then uploading to some platform. The monopoly of content had been broken, as evidenced by the …

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and image generator DALL-E, said it was testing a text-to-video model called Sora that would allow users to create realistic videos with a simple prompt. The Microsoft-backed company said the new platform was currently being tested but released a few videos of what it said was already possible, with the accompanying input made to generate …

TOKYO: Japan’s space agency toasted a successful blast-off for its new flagship rocket on Saturday, making it third time lucky after years of delays and two previous failed attempts. The next-generation H3 has been mooted as a rival to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and could one day deliver cargo to bases on the Moon. “I’ve been in the space industry for …

The total amount of money invested in bitcoin surpassed $1 trillion on Wednesday for the first time since November 2021 as inflows to U.S. spot bitcoin exchange traded funds continued to support prices. Bitcoin’s price reached $51,606 on Wednesday, its latest 25-month high and a rise of 4.1% on the day, taking the token’s market cap to $1.005 trillion according …

The total amount of money invested in bitcoin surpassed $1 trillion on Wednesday for the first time since November 2021 as inflows to U.S. spot bitcoin exchange traded funds continued to support prices. Bitcoin’s price reached $51,606 on Wednesday, its latest 25-month high and a rise of 4.1% on the day, taking the token’s market cap to $1.005 trillion according …