TECHNOLOGY

The EU's top internet enforcer took to X, the rebranded Twitter, on Wednesday to trumpet a rival platform, as a duel with Elon Musk over disinformation ratcheted up.

From fake accounts impersonating journalists to war-themed video games fueling false narratives, tech platforms are struggling to contain a tsunami of misinformation around Palestinian-Israeli hostilities after rolling back content moderation policies.

US market regulators on Thursday asked a judge to order Elon Musk to comply with a subpoena to answer questions about his purchases of Twitter shares last year.

Elon Musk's social media platform X has stripped headlines from news articles shared by users, in a move likely to further worsen relations with media groups.

Meta is proposing to offer European users a subscription-based version of Instagram and Facebook if they would rather not be tracked for ads, a source said on Tuesday.

Their language was salty and the message was clear: game developers believed their livelihoods were under threat and they were not going to accept it.

The artificial intelligence revolution is fully underway, but soaring demand for its most crucial component has startups scratching their heads on how they can deliver on AI's promise.

Researchers at Google DeepMind, the tech giant's artificial intelligence arm, on Tuesday introduced a tool that predicts whether genetic mutations are likely to cause harm, a breakthrough that could help research into rare diseases.

Across the globe, data servers are humming, consuming both megawatts and precious natural resources to bring life to our digital world.

OpenAI on Monday said it was launching a business version of ChatGPT as its artificial intelligence sensation grapples with declining usership nine months after its historic debut.

From generating story lines to coding entire games to turning ideas into animation, artificial intelligence is front and centre at Gamescom, one of the video game industry's biggest fairs.

From doctored photos making small crowds big to posts praising government accomplishments that never were, WhatsApp has become the channel of choice for disinformation in Zimbabwe before this month's elections.

The White House said Friday that OpenAI and others in the artificial intelligence race have committed to making their technology safer with features such as watermarks on fabricated images.

Google is working with news publishers to design a new AI-backed tool to help journalists report and write their stories, the company said on Thursday.

The mind-blowing growth of artificial intelligence poses many questions that have no answers yet, the United Nations admitted Thursday at its AI summit, attended by some exceptionally life-like humanoid robots.

"Upon careful review of any reported complaint indicating disinformation or misinformation, the Commission promptly notifies the relevant online platform. The platform is expected to acknowledge and swiftly process the notification, ensuring a diligent response," The MMA Africa Director, William Bird said.

Geoffrey Hinton, one of the so-called godfathers of artificial intelligence, urged governments on Wednesday to step in and make sure that machines do not take control of society.

"It is to be noted that considering the current capacity constraints experienced by the country, as coal-fired power stations reach the end of operational life, Eskom will explore multiple avenues to ensure system stability and manage the security of supply," Eskom said.

San Francisco-based Discord was created in 2015 primarily as a platform for gamers to chat, but it has also become an alternative for users disenchanted with major players Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

AIISA will be focused on solving major economic problems involving manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture and food processing.

Cervical cancer is a notorious "silent killer" of women, but especially so in poor countries that lack affordable treatment and diagnostics.

China, which claims the island as its own despite strong objections by Taiwan's government, has in the past reacted with anger to such official exchanges between Taipei and Washington.

Turkey's competition authority has fined Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc 346.72 million lira ($18.63 million) for breaking competition law, it said on Wednesday.

At around 0750 GMT, outage reporting site Downdetector had shown over 68,000 users had reported problems with the app in the United Kingdom. Problems were reported by 19,000 people in Singapore and 15,000 people in South Africa, as well.

"We're aware that some people are currently having trouble sending messages and we're working to restore WhatsApp for everyone as quickly as possible," a Meta spokesman told AFP.

Tom Persky runs floppydisk.com, a California-based online disk recycling service that takes in new and used disks before sending them onto a reliable customer base - he reckons he sells about 500 disks a day.

The game merges Nintendo's Mario, the Italian plumber who has given his name to an entire universe of games, with Ubisoft's Rabbids, a series focused on the adventures of a species of screeching, hyperactive rabbit-like animals.

For companies playing with virtual reality as disparate as plane-maker Boeing Co and online-gaming platform Roblox Corp, forays into the so-called "metaverse" have come with equal parts promise and peril.

Networking firm Cisco Systems Inc. will add Microsoft Corp.'s Teams messaging app to its meeting devices, the two firms said on Wednesday, offering users an alternative to its own Webex video conferencing app.