The UK government announced on Thursday that carbon capture technology and boosts for offshore wind are at the centre of a plan to boost green investment and infrastructure called “Powering up Britain”. New green hydrogen production projects feature prominently alongside plans for the establishment of Great British Nuclear. The plan is also thought to be a way of countering the impact of the US Inflation Reduction Act.
Pakistan Navy on Thursday exhibited an excellent display of firing surface-to-air missiles in the night. Pakistan Navy spokesperson said Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral Muhammad Amjad Khan Niazi witnessed the firing of missiles by air defence units. The spokesperson said the missiles fired by Pak Navy successfully hit their targets. He said firing of these missiles was proof of Pak Navy’s combat readiness and operational capabilities.
Elon Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives are calling for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI’s newly launched GPT-4, in an open letter citing potential risks to society and humanity. The letter, issued by the non-profit Future of Life Institute and signed by more than 1,000 people including Musk, called for a pause on advanced AI development.
A damaged Russian Soyuz spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station on Tuesday and made its way back to Earth. The Soyuz MS-22 suffered a coolant leak in December while it was docked to the station, after reportedly being struck by a meteoroid, which left a tiny hole in the spaceship.
Twitter boss Elon Musk has announced a shake-up of the social media platform's paid Twitter Blue feature. From 15 April only verified subscribers will have posts recommended to other users and be allowed to vote in polls. Under the policy, posts from non-paying accounts will not be included in the "For you" stream of recommended tweets.
TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew faced off with skeptical members of the US Congress who believe the app should receive a nationwide ban. Chew had the task of trying to convince members of Congress that the app has never shared American users' data with the Chinese government. “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” he said in opening remarks before the House. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chairwoman of the committee, led the questioning.
Riyadh: The Saudi Space Commission revealed the tasks and scientific research that would be conducted during the journey of Saudi astronauts as part of a mission to the International Space Station later this year. It announced that the two astronauts would carry out 11 pioneering experiments in microgravity during the flight, the results of which would help to enhance the Kingdom’s global position within space exploration and service to humanity. Officials noted that the Saudi tests in space would range from human research and cell science to artificial rain in microgravity.
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's founder has said that the company has replaced more than 13,000 parts in its products that were hit by US trade sanctions. According to the transcript posted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University on Friday, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said Huawei had over the past three years replaced the 13,000 components with domestic Chinese substitutes and had redesigned 4,000 circuit boards for it products.
Meta Platform’s (META.O) Instagram was down for thousands of users globally on Wednesday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. More than 46,000 users reported issues with accessing the photo-sharing platform in the United States at the peak of the outage, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources including user-submitted errors on its platform.
Japan’s second attempt to launch its next-generation H3 rocket failed after liftoff on Tuesday, with the space agency issuing a destruct command after concluding the mission could not succeed. The failure is a blow for Japan’s space agency JAXA, which has billed the rocket as a flexible and cost-effective new flagship.
Twitter timelines failed to load on Wednesday as downdetector.com reported a spike in problems with the social media platform. Users were only able to see a "Welcome to Twitter" message on their timelines as posts were inaccessible. Users could still post tweets but were unable to see them. Instead, they could only see a loading spinning circle.
Reports of more layoffs at Twitter landed on Monday as owner Elon Musk waded into a racism controversy that risked pushing advertisers further away from the struggling platform. Musk called US media “racist” on Sunday after multiple American newspapers announced they would stop publishing a popular comic strip whose creator called Black people a hate group.
Digital technology company 10Pearls hosted an Artificial Intelligence conference in Islamabad. It was attended by over 1,500 people from across the industry, entrepreneurs and students. The AI summit, which was first held in 2019, aimed to share the latest developments in AI, recognise innovations by emerging entrepreneurs and have conversations with leading international and local experts, the company said in a press release.
Digital Development Company, 10Pearls announced the opening of registrations for its upcoming Artificial Intelligence conference to be held on February 25 at the Pak-China Friendship Centre in Islamabad. As per a press release by the company, three-panel discussions are scheduled to take place at the AI summit, including AI Disruption in the Startup Ecosystem, Explainable AI & Healthcare 5.0, and GPT-3: Navigating the Crossroads of Technology and Humanity.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk says he donated around $1.95bn worth of shares in his electric carmaker to charity last year. The donation of 11.6 million shares was described in a filing with US regulators as "a bona fide gift". The filing did not name the recipient, or recipients, of the donation.
On Tuesday, it emerged that Saudi Arabia would send its first-ever woman astronaut on a space mission later this year. Rayyana Barnawi would join fellow Saudi male astronaut Ali Al-Qarni on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) "during the second quarter of 2023", the official Saudi Press Agency said. The astronauts "will join the crew of the AX-2 space mission" and the space flight will "launch from the USA", the agency added.
SpaceX has limited Ukraine's ability to use its satellite internet service for military purposes, after reports that Kyiv has used it to control drones. Early in the war, Ukraine was given thousands of SpaceX Starlink dishes, which connect to satellites and help people stay connected to the internet. But it is also said to have used the tech to target Russian positions, breaking policies set out by SpaceX.
Yahoo said on Thursday it plans to lay off more than 20% of its total workforce as part of a major restructuring of its ad tech division. The cuts will impact nearly 50% of Yahoo’s ad tech employees by the end of this year, including nearly 1,000 employees this week, the company said.
The company behind the Zoom video conferencing platform, which became a household name during the pandemic, announced on Tuesday it is laying off about 15 percent of its staff. Zoom Video Communications chief executive Eric Yuan is also taking a 98 percent cut in salary this year and forgoing his executive bonus, he said in a blog post about the job cuts.
Islamabad: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Tuesday restored Wikipedia services across Pakistan. As per details, the PTA has unblocked the service on the orders of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has blocked Wikipedia services in the country after the platform failed to remove blasphemous content. In a statement, the PTA said that Wikipedia was approached for the removal of the blasphemous content by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order.
The Meta-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp is working on a new feature in the camera and for photo editing. This new update will allow users to separately access picture and video recording options. Users can now record videos without having to hold the button down like before.
US space agency NASA announced it is partnering with the Pentagon’s DARPA to develop and test a nuclear-powered rocket engine to send astronauts on future missions to Mars. But some experts remain sceptical. NASA is teaming up with the Pentagon’s research and development arm on a new nuclear thermal rocket (NTR), which it hopes will decrease transit time and reduce risks for astronauts in future missions to Mars.
The National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) has finalised an initial inquiry report, revealing the reasons behind the power breakdown in several parts of Pakistan on Monday, January 23. The report said due to the tripping of 500KV lines, 11,356 MW of electricity disappeared from the NTDC system due to frequency fluctuation.
The Ministry of Narcotics launched its newly automated Precursor Management System (PMS) for importing controlled precursor chemicals by the industry. According to details, Nawabzada Shahzain Bugti chaired the formal launch ceremony of Precursor Management System (PSM) an online portal for registering and applying ‘No Objection Certificate (NOC).’
Donald Trump will be allowed back on to Facebook and Instagram, after Meta announced it would be ending its two-year suspension of his accounts. The suspension will end "in the coming weeks", the social media giant said.
Three days have passed but the technical fault in Balochistan’s Harnai grid station could not be fixed yet. Three technical teams of Quetta Electric Supply Company (QESCO) and Grid System Operation (GSO) are busy fixing the technical issues which stopped the power supply in the area. It will take one week to be fully operational.
The Ministry of Energy claimed on Tuesday that all 1,112 grid stations of the country’s national grid have been “restored” after a major 24-hour power breakdown. “All 1,112 grid stations restored within 24 hours nationwide,” tweeted the ministry.
A power breakdown was reported across Pakistan on Monday morning after the frequency of the national grid decreased, according to the Ministry of Energy. The ministry said that the system of frequency of the national grid went down at 7:34am today resulting in a widespread breakdown in the system. “System maintenance work is progressing rapidly,” it tweeted.
Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday that a higher priced subscription of the social media platform will not carry advertisements. The billionaire also said that ads are “too frequent on Twitter and too big,” and that steps will be taken to address those issues in coming weeks.
