Technology

WASHINGTON: NASA is considering approving by next April up to two planetary science missions from four proposals under review, including one to Venus that scientists involved in the project said could help determine whether or not that planet harbours life. An international research team on Monday described evidence of potential microbes residing in the harshly acidic Venusian clouds: traces of …

Apple will launch its first online store in India next week, the Silicon Valley giant said on Friday, hoping to cash in on the country’s festive season and grow its tiny share of the booming market. The company is a small player in India, where sales of its smartphones lag those of South Korean rival Samsung, with the iPhone maker …

SYDNEY: Facebook will be “weakened” if it stops Australians from sharing the news so the company can avoid paying for content under proposed laws, Australia’s top antitrust regulator said on Thursday. Australia has proposed forcing Facebook and internet search giant Google to pay local media outlets for content, drawing strong opposition from the U.S. companies in a dispute that is …

WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department on Wednesday announced charges against five Chinese nationals and two Malaysians who ran global hacking operations for at least six years to steal identities and video game technology, plant ransomware, and spy on Hong Kong activists. Three of the Chinese suspects operated out of Chengdu 404, a Sichuan-based company that purported to offer network security …

Apple on Tuesday said it is putting TV, music, news and more in a subscription bundle as it increases its push into services tied to its iPhone “ecosystem.” An Apple One bundle to be available later this year will start at $15 monthly and include a freshly launched fitness service tied to Apple Watch. The Silicon Valley titan made no mention of a keenly anticipated …

Apple will broadcast an event from its Cupertino, California campus on Tuesday where analysts expect it to show updated Apple Watches, iPads and other devices while reserving an iPhone launch for next month. Despite pandemic-related disruptions that Apple executives have said will push the release of the iPhone into October, Apple has posted earnings that beat expectations for the past …

US tech giant Microsoft said Sunday its offer to buy TikTok was rejected, as a deadline looms for the Chinese-owned video app to sell or shut down its US operations. TikTok has been at the center of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing, and President Donald Trump gave Americans a deadline to stop doing business with TikTok’s Chinese parent …

Amazon.com on Monday said it is recruiting 100,000 more workers – the fourth hiring spree it has announced for the United States this year – to keep pace with e-commerce demand that jumped during the pandemic. The world’s biggest online retailer said the positions are for full and part-time work in its home country and Canada, and these will include …

ISLAMABAD: There seems to be a shift in consumer behaviour from voice to data usage and the telecom sector may require cost-cutting measures in infrastructure and meet the growing demand of the internet. More submarine cable companies may soon enter the Pakistani market. These views have been expressed by Edotco Pakistan’s managing director Arif Hussain. Talking to media, he said …

Ever since the WeWork fiasco last year that shook investors’ confidence in startups with shaky fundamentals (a culture they had promoted in the first place), there has been a recalibration towards software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies which are increasingly seen as a bastion of stability and healthy financials. The shift is not limited to just investors as SaaS has also come to …