Technology

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan: A Soyuz rocket blasted off on Wednesday from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan carrying an Emirati who is set to make history as the first Arab on the International Space Station. The Russian rocket carrying the three-member crew — including Hazzaa al-Mansoori of the United Arab Emirates — took off as scheduled at 1357 GMT. Mansoori, 35, …

SAN FRANCISCO: Google said Wednesday it was stepping up efforts to battle “deepfakes” by releasing new data to help researchers detect videos manipulated by artificial intelligence. The tech giant is releasing “a large dataset of visual deepfakes we´ve produced” that can be used as benchmarks to determine if a video has been altered. The move comes amid growing concerns that …

SAN FRANCISCO: Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a cornucopia of new gadgets as it extended the reach of Alexa from automobiles and homes essentially into people´s heads. Amazon digital aide Alexa vies with Google Assistant software to be at the heart of smart homes where lights, security systems, televisions and more are controlled with spoken commands. While the Seattle-based technology titan …

WASHINGTON: NASA on Monday earmarked almost $3 billion to Lockheed Martin to build three Orion capsules, to allow US astronauts to return to the moon by 2024. The megadeal calls for a first phase including three capsules for $2.7 billion, for Artemis missions III to V — to take astronauts back to the moon. Each capsule can carry four astronauts. …

LUXEMBOURG: Europe’s top court will on Tuesday rule whether US search giant Google must apply worldwide a ruling that it comply with requests to remove online links, or whether the “de-referencing” should be limited to just EU domains. The landmark case, stemming from a legal battle waged by France to impose a “right to be forgotten” on the web, will …

Luxembourg: Google is not required to apply an EU “right to be forgotten” to its search engine domains outside Europe, the EU’s top court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision. The European Court of Justice handed victory to Google in the case, seen as crucial in determining whether EU online regulation should apply beyond Europe’s borders or not. The US …

TOKYO: Nintendo is set to bring one of its most successful franchises to mobile for the first time on Wednesday with the global launch of Mario Kart Tour, in a test of the gaming firm’s strategy to drive growth beyond consoles. Mario Kart Tour will feature gameplay familiar to longtime Nintendo fans but with controls optimized for mobile devices. Players …

Right after Apple launched the iOS 13, iPhone users could not hold their excitement for the bundle of new features that were in store for them. However, there was one feature that was widely anticipated by all –the Memoji Stickers. The characters brought to life on Apple devices have thus far been regarded as one of the favourites by all …

How many hundreds of millions of dollars would you pay for reruns of “Friends,” the American version of “The Office” or “The Big Bang Theory”? If you are a streaming powerhouse, the answer is: quite a few. As online video platforms jockey for position with new rivals for audience share, classic television series are commanding hefty sums. “It’s a feeding …

PayPal is cautious about the future of Facebook-backed cryptocurrency Libra, which is slated to debut with the pioneering digital payments firm as part of its oversight association. International outcry is mounting over Libra — with central banks, governments and regulators railing against Facebook’s upstart cryptocurrency and questions over how it would be regulated. The social media giant unveiled plans in June for Libra …