Month: June 2024
Nvidia and Microsoft’s dominace in AI industry
The tech giants have a combined market value of $6.6 trillion (€6.16 trillion), making them two of the three largest companies in the world. Microsoft’s recent success has been underpinned by its $13 billion bet on OpenAI, the startup behind the ChatGPT chatbot, while Nvidia can boast the world’s most advanced chips that are vital
Threat to American patents
India, South Africa, and other developing countries petitioned in October 2020 to waive TRIPS protection for COVID-19 patents. The Biden Administration supported the petition, and it was granted in a June 2022 vote of WTO TRIPS Council members. Under the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of International Property , which was adopted in 1994, virtually all nations
New vaccines against Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is still one of the deadliest infectious diseases, causing over one million deaths each year worldwide.The current anti-tuberculosis vaccine, BCG, is administered worldwide. However, considering that more than 10 million new tuberculosis cases are reported each year, its effectiveness is deemed insufficient.In developing tuberculosis vaccines, scientists have studied proteins from M. tuberculosis that trigger
Wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah
The Israeli military plans outline an assault into Lebanon should a larger-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah break out. The operation would need approval from the Israeli government. Hezbollah’s video showed what it claimed were sensitive sites located miles inside Israeli territory and was perceived as a warning that the militant group has intelligence about
China Aiding drug trafficking from Mexico to US
The US has accused a Chinese “underground banking” network of helping Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa drugs cartel with money laundering and other crimes. Law enforcement officers have seized about $5m (£4m) in proceeds, as well as guns and hundreds of pounds of cocaine, methamphetamine and ecstasy pills.The US accuses the Sinaloa cartel of helping to fuel
AI model DenseAV learns through watching videos
AI model DenseAV learns by comparing pairs of audio and visual signals and determines what data is important. To learn these patterns it uses audio-video contrastive learning to associate a particular sound with the observable world. This mode of learning means the visual side of the model can’t gain any insights from the audio side
Settling ‘tap-and-go’ probe
Apple Pay is used by hundreds of millions of iPhones and the conclusion of this long-running Brussels investigation comes at a time of particularly tense relationships between Apple and regulators. Apple is to conclude a long-running EU antitrust investigation into its mobile payments system and avoid a huge fine by making a series of concessions
Telegram Disables paywall on iOS devices
The paywall bots hid posts behind a notice to pay some money in order to access the content. The blurred image was actually a hyperlink that took users to an outside payment platform.This essentially turned Telegram into a kind of OnlyFans-lite, with all proceeds going to the creators. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced late last
Attack on Niger’s pipeline
An armed group opposed to Niger’s ruling junta disabled a section of the country’s PetroChina-fundedcrude oil pipeline in an attack on Sunday night. The Patriotic Liberation Front (FPL) said its attack on the pipeline was aimed at pushing Niger’s Chinese partners to cancel the export deal. The FPL formed after the West African country’s July
Vladimir Putin visits North Korea
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to North Korea on Tuesday for a summit with its reclusive leader Kim Jong Un − his first visit to the country in nearly a quarter of a century. Russia and North Korea were close allies during the Cold War. Relations cooled with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Putin