He did not specify the timing of the increases, how much or which devices would be impacted. Apple's next major launch is expected in September, with the iPhone 18 lineup. "There's less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases," Cook said.

The Wall Street Journal report cited an estimate from research firm TechInsights, which said Apple would need to increase the price of its iPhone Pro model by $270 to maintain its current profit margin. The rapid buildout of AI data centers has sent the cost of memory chips and RAM skyrocketing -- as the components are found in nearly all electronic devices -- with the chips undergoing quarterly price increases of at least 50 percent since late 2025.

Cook, who has worked in electronic supply chains throughout his career -- including stints at IBM and Compaq before joining Apple -- said he has never experienced such a spike in prices, calling it a "hundred-year flood."

Following US sanctions imposed in 2019, Huawei’s new devices lost access to Google Mobile Services (GMS) licenses. As a result, users are unable to directly use popular Google services such as the Play Store, Gmail, YouTube, and Google Maps. To overcome this limitation, some Huawei devices reportedly allow users to access Google-based applications through GBox, a third-party application.

The arrangement has raised concerns among technology analysts and users. They argue that smartphone buyers naturally expect widely used applications to function seamlessly. Reliance on alternative platforms in devices lacking official Google licenses may complicate the user experience and create uncertainty regarding app performance.

User complaints have already surfaced. In the Facebook group “Huawei Mobile User Community in Bangladesh,” a user identified as S.M. Sabbir Hossain Noman reported experiencing repeated problems while using the bKash mobile financial service app through GBox on his Huawei Y90 smartphone. According to his post, the application frequently stops functioning properly after a period of use. He sought assistance from fellow users in finding a permanent solution.

Technology experts note that stability is particularly critical for banking and financial transaction applications. If users must rely on alternative platforms to access such services, questions regarding security, reliability, and long-term support are likely to arise.

Huawei Bangladesh was contacted for its official position on the matter. However, Faruk Rahman, Marketing Manager (Devices) at Huawei Bangladesh, declined to comment. As a result, the company’s stance on the necessity of GBox, its limitations, security measures, and user complaints remains unclear.

According to industry analysts, Huawei’s biggest challenge in Bangladesh is no longer limited to selling new devices. Rather, it must regain consumer confidence and demonstrate its technological capability and transparency in a post-Google environment.

Once one of the world’s leading smartphone manufacturers, Huawei faced a major setback in 2019 when the United States government placed the company on its Entity List, citing national security concerns. Washington alleged that Huawei’s technology and telecommunications infrastructure could pose security risks, claims the company has consistently denied.

Following the US sanctions, Google suspended Huawei’s access to Google Mobile Services (GMS) for new devices. As a result, Huawei smartphones lost official access to key services such as the Google Play Store, Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Drive. Industry analysts viewed this as one of the most significant blows to the company’s global smartphone business.

Beyond software restrictions, Huawei also encountered severe challenges in obtaining advanced semiconductors and chip technologies due to US export controls. These limitations affected the company’s ability to use cutting-edge chipsets, contributing to a sharp decline in its position within the global smartphone market.

The impact of the sanctions extended to the telecommunications sector as well. Several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Sweden, imposed bans or strict restrictions on the use of Huawei equipment in their 5G networks. Citing concerns over cybersecurity and data protection, these measures further damaged the company’s international reputation.

Against this backdrop, Huawei’s return to Bangladesh is being closely scrutinized. Industry observers question how the company plans to compete in a market where consumers rely heavily on Google-based applications and services.

Shamim, a customer visiting Police Plaza to purchase a mobile phone, said Huawei’s name is now often associated with US sanctions, the loss of Google services, and ongoing security controversies. “Huawei once held a strong position in the market, but consumer confidence has weakened. Simply returning to Bangladesh does not guarantee acceptance. The company will have to undergo a tough test to regain the trust it has lost,” he said.

Technology market stakeholders also question whether a smartphone brand that lacks official Google services can successfully survive in Bangladesh’s highly competitive market, where such services remain essential for many users.

Inaugurating the fair Rangpur Divisional Commissioner Shahidul Islam stressed on practical application of science education. New invention is very important for progress of the humanity, he said. He urged the students to be more attentive on scientific practice and innovative activities to prepare them to serve the nation.   Additional Divisional Commissioner Abdul Motaleb, senior government officials, teachers, students, guardians, and journalists were present at the inauguration ceremony.

A Bangladeshi delegation led by Bangladesh Semiconductor Industry Association (BSIA) President M A Jabbar held meetings with senior executives of leading semiconductor companies, including AMD, NXP and Tokyo Electron (TEL). The discussions focused on Bangladesh's long-term semiconductor strategy, talent development initiatives, innovation ecosystem and opportunities for technical and business collaboration.

Professor Muhammad Mustafa Hussain of Purdue University and Chief Architect of the Silicon River Bangladesh Initiative presented Bangladesh's progress and future aspirations, highlighting the country's strengths in talent development, innovation, artificial intelligence-driven semiconductor solutions, digital twin technologies, advanced packaging and industry-academia collaboration. Representatives of Bangladeshi technology firms, including Dynamic Solution Innovators (DSi), iTest Bangladesh Limited, Neural Semiconductor Limited and SILICONOVA Limited, also showcased their technical capabilities and business offerings.

According to the organizers, participating companies expressed appreciation for Bangladesh's technology-focused approach and agreed to explore greater engagement, technical cooperation, industry visits and broader participation in the country's developing semiconductor sector. On June 6, the Austin BRAINGAIN Reception brought together around 75 Bangladeshi-origin semiconductor professionals representing more than 1,500 years of combined industry experience.

Participants were briefed on the Silicon River vision and Bangladesh's efforts to develop a sustainable semiconductor ecosystem through research, entrepreneurship, workforce development and international partnerships. The Austin programme was supported by a number of Bangladeshi-origin semiconductor professionals, including Dr Sayeed Badrudduza of NXP, Samiul Khan of AMD and Joel Barnett of Tokyo Electron. The Silicon River and BRAINGAIN USA Roadshow is scheduled to continue in several US cities as part of efforts to strengthen collaboration among Bangladesh, the global semiconductor industry and the Bangladeshi diaspora, said the release. 

- Flashing red -

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says there is about an 80 percent chance of El Nino developing by July. Sea temperatures in key El Nino zones of the equatorial Pacific are rapidly rising, and an enormous pool of abnormally warm water is massing beneath the surface. Several leading weather services are predicting Pacific sea temperatures could surge 2.5C or more above average later this year -- exceptionally high projections. Just three events -- 1982/83, 1997/98 and 2015/16 -- have breached 2C since the first major El Nino recorded in the modern era in 1877/78.

Adam Scaife, head of long-range prediction at the UK Met Office, said this El Nino could be the strongest in decades or "even be of record strength". "There's definitely something coming. We're very confident about that, and it looks like it will be a big event," he told AFP.

- Wily winds -

NOAA forecasts a one-in-three chance this episode will hit 2C or above -- crossing into what is dubbed "super El Nino" territory. But key pieces of the puzzle had yet to fall into place, said Michelle L'Heureux, NOAA's El Nino-Southern Oscillation lead. El Ninos build strength as the ocean and atmosphere increasingly "couple" over the summer months, shifting air pressure, cloud patterns and winds.

This feedback loop can turn a modest El Nino into a blockbuster event, supercharging heat and triggering chaotic weather worldwide. A hallmark of the strongest El Ninos is the weakening of trade winds that blow east to west across the equator. But those winds are unpredictable and can strengthen unexpectedly, said L'Heureux. "When that happens, it pauses the growth of El Nino or even reverses it," she told AFP.

"Ultimately the strength of this event will be likely influenced by these details, like the low-level winds, which we cannot predict many months in advance."
- Heat incoming –

El Nino tends to peak around December but ocean heat releases slowly and can drive up global temperatures the following years. Many record-hot years -- including 1998, 2010, 2016, 2023 and 2024 -- followed major El Nino events or developed alongside them. Climate scientists interviewed by AFP said global heat records could fall in 2026 -- but 2027 was the year to watch.

There "could easily be a new record level of global warmth in 2027" if an extreme El Nino takes shape this year, said Scaife. It remains unclear whether Earth's warming is influencing El Nino intensity. The last event in 2023/24 was weaker than episodes in 1982/83 and 1997/98, making any trend hard to pin down.

Scientists stress that stronger El Ninos raise the odds of more severe impacts -- but do not guarantee them. Yet even a weaker event now unfolds in a world transformed by climate change, with extra heat and moisture loading an already feverish atmosphere and oceans.

That means El Nino's impacts could become more extreme even if the phenomenon itself is not growing stronger. "The impacts of this El Nino -- on things like rainfall and of course temperature -- are riding on top of climate change, and could well be larger than anything we've seen in the past," said Scaife.

- Different world -

Every El Nino is different, but major events often follow familiar patterns: drought across parts of the Amazon, Indonesia and Australia, disrupted Indian monsoons, and shifting rainfall throughout the tropics. But climate change has shifted the baseline so dramatically that "history is a poorer guide for seasonal predictions," climatologist Felicity Gamble at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology told AFP. "What happened during an El Nino event 20 years ago is probably quite different to how it might manifest these days."

Forecasts are also complicated by climate-driven ocean warming, which makes it easier to trigger El Nino conditions and harder to distinguish La Nina, its opposite cooling phase, against a hotter backdrop, Gamble said. The Bureau of Meteorology and NOAA have started filtering out background warming to improve forecast accuracy. Other weather agencies are adopting similar adjusted benchmarks. Even still, Australia is predicting El Nino could reach 2.8C -- potentially a history-making event.

The company did not intend to recover either the booster or the upper stage, and the final splashdown was fiery but controlled, as planned. "Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on the twelfth flight test of Starship!" the company wrote on X. The third-generation Starship spacecraft carried out a maneuver that saw it flip upright and reignite its engines for control, despite one being out of commission.

It also deployed its 22 mock satellites, including two that attempted to photograph the spacecraft's heat shield for analysis. The vehicle had coasted through space but was not in exactly the correct orbit after one of its engines malfunctioned during an initial burn. "I wouldn't call it nominal orbital insertion," company spokesperson Dan Huot said, adding however that it was "within bounds" of a previously analyzed trajectory.

After the Super Heavy booster separated from the upper stage as expected, Huot said on the livestream that the booster failed to complete its so-called boost-back burn. The booster fell swiftly back to Earth, uncontrolled, into the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX wasn't planning to recapture the booster anyway, but was still hoping for a precision return.

- NASA administrator onsite -

Friday's flight followed an aborted trial one day prior. The countdown clock stopped and started until it was determined that the last-minute red flags could not be addressed in time. Musk quickly posted on X that "the hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract." SpaceX said that issue was corrected overnight. The company is facing extra scrutiny after SpaceX filed earlier this week with US financial regulators to go public, likely in June, in what is expected to become a record IPO.

Friday marks Starship's 12th flight overall, but the first in seven months. The latest design is bigger than its predecessor, standing at just over 407 feet (124 meters) when fully stacked. There's a lot riding on SpaceX's progress: the company is under contract with NASA to produce a modified version of Starship to serve as a lunar landing system. The US space agency's Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon, as China forges ahead with a rival effort that's targeting 2030 for its first crewed mission.

Ahead of launch, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman appeared during the pre-launch SpaceX program and said "we're looking forward to seeing this fly, because hopefully at some point in the not-too-distant future we're going to join up in Earth orbit." Both SpaceX and rival Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos-owned firm also vying to develop a lunar lander, have realigned their strategies to prioritize projects related to Moon missions.

NASA is aiming to test an in-orbit rendezvous between its spacecraft and one or two lunar landers in 2027 and carry out a crewed lunar landing before the end of 2028. But a lot needs to happen before then -- and industry experts have voiced repeated skepticism that SpaceX and Blue Origin can achieve benchmarks in time.

Musk -- the feted, if unpredictable, man behind SpaceX and Tesla -- claims Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman improperly used a $38 million injection he had hoped would sustain OpenAI as a research lab, developing the technology for the good of humanity. "It does not fit with my conception of the words 'stealing a charity' to look at what has actually happened here," Altman told the court in Oakland, California.

OpenAI was founded as a non-profit in 2015, but established a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 as the AI race heated up. Altman and others insist this was necessary to raise the vast sums of money from investors, including Microsoft, required to compete in a costly and difficult field. Musk's legal case demands that OpenAI revert to non-profit status, a move that would impact its position in the global artificial intelligence race against Anthropic, Google and China's Deepseek.

OpenAI counters that Musk -- who is now also a competitor in the field with his xAI -- is motivated by petty revenge, having failed to seize majority control of the commercial entity. The court has heard how, in 2017, the company's co-founders discussed the creation of the subsidiary with Musk. Altman said Tuesday that the Tesla boss demanded a huge controlling stake. "An early number that Mr Musk threw out was that he should have 90 percent of the equity to start," he told the jury.

"It then softened, but it always was a majority." "The fact that Mr Musk was unwilling to commit in writing to something contractual where he would not have long-term control made me very uncomfortable," said Altman. He said OpenAI had been founded with the belief that no one person should control artificial general intelligence (AGI), the hypothetical level at which AI is smarter than humans. When Altman and Brockman thwarted Musk's attempts to dominate the company, the mercurial businessman walked away entirely, telling them the venture would fail without him.

"The thing that burned into my memory is when he told us we had a zero percent -- not one percent -- chance of success," Altman told the hearing. Musk's lawyers hit back, sparring with Altman over claims he is deceitful. "Are you completely trustworthy?" Attorney Steven Molo asked. "Do you always tell the truth?" "I believe I'm a truthful person," a tense Altman replied. "It wasn't my question, sir," snapped Molo.

Altman was abruptly ousted as head of OpenAI in November 2023, accused of opacity by his own board of directors. He was reinstated five days later after a company revolt, but has struggled to shrug off a reputation for dishonesty in Silicon Valley. On Tuesday prosecutors from 10 US states demanded Altman be compelled to reveal potential conflicts of interest ahead of a mooted public offering for OpenAI next year.

Altman "has a history of self-dealing and serious conflicts of interest that have created significant risk for the company," the letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission seen by AFP said. Musk's case has highlighted the mind-boggling sums of cash washing around AI companies as they forge ahead with a technology that is changing the way we live and work. That includes the $30 billion stake that Altman's co-founder Greg Brockman was revealed to have in the company.

On Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified that he was "very proud" of his firm's canny investment in the commercial venture, which has seen an initial $13 billion become worth more than ten times that amount in just a few years. An advisory jury is expected to reach a verdict on any actual wrongdoing by the week of May 18. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will then make the final ruling on both liability and remedies after hearing the jury's opinion. She has indicated she will likely follow their advice.

Sponsored by Pubali Bank PLC, the festival featured project showcases, science olympiad, poster presentation, Rubik's Cube competition, photography, chess, treasure hunt and movie shows. Speaking at the closing ceremony, the vice-chancellor said science-based activities help develop students' creativity, innovative thinking and research-oriented mindset.

In his lawsuit, Musk accuses OpenAI of betraying its original nonprofit mission and misappropriating his founding donations totaling $38 million to build an empire now valued at over $850 billion. The Tesla and SpaceX founder is calling for OpenAI to revert to its original status as a nonprofit -- a move that would impact its position in the global artificial intelligence race against Anthropic, Google and China's Deepseek.

OpenAI counters that Musk, who is now an AI competitor with his xAI, is motivated by petty revenge, having stormed off in a huff after failing to seize majority control. Nadella told a jury in Oakland, California, on Monday that Microsoft's investment in the nonprofit arm, which now owns around a quarter of OpenAI Group PBC -- the firm behind ChatGPT -- had helped create "one of the largest, most well-funded nonprofits in the world." Musk's attorney said internal Microsoft documents showed the computer behemoth actually had its eye on profit, rather than on helping to nurture a philanthropic AI service, having seen its initial $13 billion investment balloon to be worth $92 billion four years later.

"It has worked out well because we took the risk," said Nadella, of a stake that is now estimated to be worth $135 billion. "If the pie became larger, obviously the nonprofit would benefit as well with their mission - and that's what in fact it's proven out," he said. Musk's lawyers suggested Microsoft was instrumental in OpenAI's pivot toward being a commercial company, citing Nadella's 2023 boast: "We have the people, we have the compute, we have the data, we have everything."

That year, when several members of OpenAI's board ousted company founder Sam Altman, citing a tendency to obfuscate, Nadella moved to shore him up. "I would also try to make sure that Sam and Greg (Brockman, his co-founder) don't create a competing company and they would join Microsoft," he told the court. The morning after Altman was fired, Microsoft had already established a subsidiary company to welcome them and acquire the equity stakes of any employees who chose to follow them - a move one of the co-founders estimated would have cost approximately $25 billion.

After a five-day crisis, Altman was ultimately reinstated at OpenAI. Altman is expected to take the stand on Tuesday or Wednesday, ahead of closing arguments later in the week. An advisory jury is expected to reach a verdict on any actual wrongdoing by the week of May 18. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will then make the final ruling on both liability and remedies after hearing the jury's opinion. She has indicated she will likely follow their advice. If Gonzalez Rogers ultimately sides with Musk, OpenAI's initial public offering could be jeopardized.

The trial has already heard gripping testimony. Last week, co-founder Greg Brockman -- whose stake in OpenAI is valued at $30 billion -- came under fire about his 2017 diary entries including one in which he appeared keen on "making money for us." Musk's lawyers seized on the entries to portray Brockman as a calculating opportunist. Brockman also told lawyers that Musk physically threatened him in 2017 after Musk was refused absolute control of OpenAI. Musk on Wednesday announced a major partnership with Anthropic, OpenAI's top rival, to allow it to use the compute capacity at SpaceX's largest data center.

The trial has laid bare the internal strife within a circle of elite Silicon Valley engineers, investors and executives in the years leading up to the high-profile launch of the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. In his lawsuit, Musk accuses OpenAI of betraying its original nonprofit mission and misappropriating his founding donations totalling $38 million to build an empire valued at over $850 billion. The Tesla and SpaceX founder is calling for OpenAI to revert to its original status as a nonprofit -- a move that would impact its position in the global artificial intelligence race against Anthropic, Google and China's Deepseek.

OpenAI counters that Musk left voluntarily after failing to seize majority control and has since become the company's direct competitor through his own AI venture, xAI. An "advisory" jury is expected to reach a verdict on any actual wrongdoing by the week of May 18. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will then make the final ruling on both liability and remedies after hearing the jury's opinion. She has indicated she will likely follow their advice.

If Gonzalez Rogers ultimately sides with Musk, OpenAI's initial public offering could be jeopardized. On Monday, Musk's lawyers are expected to try to convince the jury that Microsoft, by investing in OpenAI in 2019, knew it was helping divert a nonprofit foundation from its original purpose. He will rely on recently disclosed Microsoft emails from January 2018 to demonstrate that the tech giant only opened its checkbook once a profit appeared possible.

In the emails, Nadella consulted his executives about a discount granted to OpenAI to use the computing power of Azure, Microsoft's cloud-computing platform. "Overall I can't tell what research they are doing and how if shared with us it could help us get ahead," Nadella wrote. "From what Elon is telling everyone... he feels Open AI is at verge of some big AGI (artificial general intelligence) breakthroughs."

Skepticism predominated at the time, with Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott fearing OpenAI might "storm off to Amazon in a huff." In the months that followed, cash-strapped OpenAI established a for-profit subsidiary to attract investments, rather than relying solely on donations. In 2019, a year and a half after turning its back on the startup, Microsoft finally invested $1 billion. It would ultimately inject $13 billion in total, a stake now valued at $228 billion -- 17 times the initial investment.

The trial has already heard gripping testimony. Last week, co-founder Greg Brockman -- whose stake in OpenAI is valued at $30 billion -- came under fire about his 2017 diary entries including one in which he appeared keen on "making money for us." Musk's lawyers seized on the entries to portray Brockman as a calculating opportunist. Brockman also told lawyers that Musk physically threatened him in 2017 after Musk was refused absolute control of OpenAI. Musk on Wednesday announced a major partnership with Anthropic, OpenAI's top rival, to allow it to use the compute capacity at SpaceX's largest data center.

According to the Harvard Crimson student newspaper and posts on social media, students attempting to access the system on Thursday saw a message from the hacking group saying servers belonging to Canvas's parent company Instructure had "again" been breached. "Instead of contacting us to resolve it they ignored us and did some 'security patches,'" the hackers said.

"If any of the schools in the affected list are interested in preventing the release of their data, please consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact us privately...to negotiate a settlement." The group warned it would release all stolen data if schools did not make contact by May 12. The message included a link to a list of schools ShinyHunters claims to have breached through Canvas.

Stanford University said Canvas was "currently unavailable due to an issue being experienced by the vendor," adding that Instructure had recently disclosed a nationwide information security issue it said had been contained. But a further outage was now affecting Canvas customers including Stanford and "numerous other educational institutions nationwide," the university added. Instructure said the stolen data in the original breach included personal details such as names, email addresses and student ID numbers, along with private messages exchanged between users.

At nearly 100 meters (about 328 feet) tall, the New Glenn is slated for liftoff from Florida's Cape Canaveral sometime between 6:45 am (1045 GMT) and 8:45 am. It will carry a communications satellite for the company AST SpaceMobile. The company has launched the New Glenn twice before, but only with new rocket boosters.

It has launched its far smaller New Shepard rocket, primarily used for suborbital space tourism, with reused components before in a less technically challenging operation. In November, Blue Origin recovered a New Glenn booster for the first time, succeeding in the complex technical challenge that culminated with a controlled vertical landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean.

A previous attempt in January 2025 to recover the booster was unsuccessful after its engines failed to reignite during descent. The booster that will be used in Sunday's launch was refurbished after its previous flight. For this first reuse, the company replaced all of its engines and make a few other modifications.

After liftoff, the rocket's two stages will separate at altitude. The upper stage will continue its journey carrying the satellite into space, while the booster will descend and attempt to land on a barge. The operation's performance will be closely watched, as the New Glenn is at the heart of Bezos's space ambitions. He is notably competing with Musk in NASA's Artemis lunar program, with their respective space companies both developing lunar landers for the US space agency. The United States is doubling down on efforts to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon in 2028, before the end of President Donald Trump's term and a deadline set by Chinese rivals.

e said following a voice check from mission control in Houston. NASA and the US military will now help them leave the bobbing capsule, after which they will be flown to a recovery ship off the Pacific coast near San Diego. As the astronauts returned to Earth their spacecraft reached maximum speeds more than 30 times the speed of sound, and faced searing temperatures around half as hot as the surface of the Sun. It was a key test of their heat shield, which in an earlier trial mission had faced complications.

But the Artemis II re-entry went off without a hitch. "This was a textbook entry and a textbook touchdown," said Navias. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman called the voyage "a perfect mission."

"We're back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon," he said, and "this is just the beginning." "We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the Moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base."

Historic journey -

From liftoff to splashdown, the trip clocked in at nine days, one hour, 31 minutes and 35 seconds -- though NASA rounds up and calls it a 10-day mission. It began with a dramatic launch from Florida on April 1, and was studded with firsts, records and extraordinary moments. It was the inaugural crewed mission of NASA's program aiming to install a sustained presence on the Moon, including, as administrator Isaacman emphasized, the eventual construction of a base.

The second phase of the Artemis program was a test mission to verify the reliability of the Orion capsule, which before now had not carried humans. The voyage also broke a record: the four astronauts become the humans to travel furthest away from the Earth, at 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). While hurtling through deep space and zipping around the Moon the astronauts took thousands of photographs, amassing a stunning portfolio of images that captivated people on Earth. They also witnessed a solar eclipse along with extraordinary meteorite strikes on the lunar surface, which left NASA scientists awe-struck.

Several achievements added to the voyage's historic nature: Glover was the first person of color to fly around the Moon, Koch was the first woman, and Canadian Hansen the first non-American.

Vital heat shield -

The Orion capsule passed a key test: the re-entry stakes were particularly high given concerns that arose during Artemis I, when an uncrewed 2022 test flight to the Moon and back saw a crucial heat shield erode in unexpected ways. To minimize risks this time around, NASA shifted the re-entry path they had used in the test mission, after determining it had played a role in the complications. The astronauts returned at a steeper and thus shorter trajectory, which NASA officials in discussion with the astronauts concluded would reduce risk to an acceptable degree.

Still, the heat shield situation prompted uneasy comparisons to the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters of 1986 and 2003 respectively, when astronauts died after warning signs were set aside. The Orion capsule will now be painstakingly examined to assess how it fared. But to the relief of NASA, the astronauts and their families along with the public at large, Artemis II completed a successful trip home, returning four still-healthy astronauts. Loved ones were watching the descent from mission control in Houston, where the astronauts are due to reunite with their families, likely this weekend.

"That's a phenomenon I didn't see coming," said Jennie Hayes Kurtz of the country music band Brother and The Hayes. "I thought AI was going to be curing cancer or something." Many of the AI country tunes tap into the genre's archetype of the lone cowboy: a rugged, taciturn, plain-spoken man who, above all, refuses to apologize for simply existing. Lyrics are delivered in raspy, gravelly voices that sound as authentic as the real thing.

"It's scary as songwriters," said Kassie Jordan, who forms the singing duo Blue Honey with her husband Troy Brooks. "We are starting to see a lot of people just putting words into these chatbots and it is writing songs for them," she said. "As a songwriter, it's kind of like, is anyone going to even think I really wrote this?" Berklee College of Music professor Joe Bennett noted that a sampling of AI singers suggests that the words used to "prompt" AI songs were "not particularly detailed." None of the producers behind AI-generated music projects responded to AFP's requests for comment.

So how did AI find a place in a genre that is fundamentally rooted in the human experience and storytelling, blending folk, blues, and even gospel influences? For Bennett, the emergence of modern country music in the early 2000s -- with a highly polished, more pop sound and repeated "melodic shapes" -- is key. AI models could become adept at replicating such a sound, when fueled with those elements, he explained.

Once overshadowed by rap and Latin music, and hindered by the industry's shift to digital music formats, country music has nevertheless staged a comeback thanks to a generation of artists with stronger pop, not folk, sensibilities. Following in the footsteps of country-turned-pop megastar Taylor Swift, today's headliners are more likely to sport baseball caps than wide Stetsons.

Their music breaks genre boundaries, while artists such as Beyonce and Post Malone win fans and sell albums with their crossover efforts. Last year, country stars Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan were both in the top 10 most streamed artists on Spotify. Some in the industry believe country's rebirth signifies a dulled-down formula designed to appeal to the widest possible audience.

"The lyrics aren't as deep as they used to be," Jordan said. "A big portion of popular country music has become kind of shallow, so that is pretty easy to duplicate." Bennett says the industry must do a better job of identifying AI-generated music, noting that Deezer is the only major streaming platform to clearly label such material.

"We need AI detection," Bennett maintained. "It will happen, and there is a consumer demand for it." Hayes Kurtz said there is a large audience of "passive" listeners who don't care whether music is made by AI, but there are also "active listeners" who attend concerts, buy band merchandise, and deeply respect the integrity of the artists. "That audience seems to really care it the music is made by the actual humans they are going to see," Hayes Kurtz said.

Jordan says she remains optimistic about the future. "There's another wave of country artists that are coming that is really into doing it the old school way and showing emotion," she said. "That will be harder for AI to duplicate. That might save the genre." 

"Humans probably have not evolved to see what we're seeing," said Victor Glover. "It is truly hard to describe. It is amazing." The crew reported in vivid detail features of the lunar surface and later witnessed a solar eclipse, when the Moon passed in front of the Sun. They also described flashes of light -- meteor strikes -- on the Moon's surface. "I can't say enough how much science we've already learned," Kelsey Young, lead scientist for the Artemis II mission, told the astronauts.

"You really brought the Moon closer for us today, and we cannot say thank you enough." But even after becoming the furthest humans ever to travel from Earth, their day was not over: the bleary-eyed astronauts remained in good spirits as they took a late-night call from US President Donald Trump. Unlike the Artemis astronauts and NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, Trump at age 79 is old enough to remember the Apollo program.

"You've really inspired the entire world," Trump said, calling them "modern-day pioneers" who have "a lot of courage doing what you're doing." "America will be second to none in space and everything we're doing, and we will continue to lead the whole thing into the stars, this incredible journey into the stars." He probed the astronauts about their favorite moments and asked what it was like to lose connection with Earth for some 40 minutes during an expected communications blackout and even experienced his own signal glitch while calling into space.

"Might have gotten cut off," Trump said as he waited a full minute for the signal to return. "It is a long distance." The journey wrapped up late Monday and had plenty of milestones including when the Artemis II team broke the distance record set by the 1970 Apollo 13 mission, which they surpassed by more than 4,000 miles (more than 6,000 kilometers) when they reached the journey's furthest distance from Earth 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). Astronaut Jeremy Hansen said the moment should "challenge this generation and the next, to make sure this record is not long-lived."

And as noted by Trump, the crew lost contact with planet Earth for about 40 minutes as their spacecraft passed behind Earth's satellite. The blackout period was expected but still notable: they were the first people in more than 50 years to lose contact with the rest of humanity. "It is so great to hear from Earth again," said astronaut Christina Koch, as the crew regained connection with their home planet.

"We will always choose Earth." The Orion capsule will now travel back to Earth in a so-called "free-return trajectory," a trip that will take about four days. Adding to the historic nature of the mission led by Reid Wiseman, the Artemis II crew includes several firsts. Glover was the first person of color to fly around the Moon, Koch was the first woman, and Canadian Hansen the first non-American.

The celestial workday Monday included a poignant moment just after the crew broke the distance record, when they proposed designating two previously unnamed craters. The first they requested to name in honor of their spacecraft's nickname, "Integrity." They offered a second name, "Carroll," for another crater, which they asked be named after the late wife of mission commander Reid Wiseman, who died of cancer.

"It's a bright spot on the Moon," said Hansen, his voice breaking with emotion. "And we would like to call it Carroll." The astronauts embraced, and mission control in Houston held a moment of silence. "Integrity and Carroll crater, loud and clear. Thank you," said Gibbons. NASA said they would formally submit the name proposals to the International Astronomical Union, the body charged with naming celestial bodies and surface features.

Eight years later, the program has evolved into something far more expansive: an AI-assisted targeting and battlefield management system that has vastly accelerated what is known in war-making as the kill chain -- the process from initial detection to destruction. Maven functions like both the air traffic control of battle and its cockpit. Aalok Mehta, director of the CSIS Wadhwani AI Center, described the system as "essentially an overlay" that fuses sensor data, enemy troop intelligence, satellite imagery, and information on troop deployment.

In practice, that means rapidly scanning satellite feeds to detect troop movements or identify targets, while also "taking a snapshot of the operational theater" to determine the best course of action for striking a specific target. In a recent demonstration posted online, a Pentagon official described how Maven "magically" turns an observed threat into a targeting workflow, weighing available assets and presenting a commander with options. The emergence of ChatGPT was another leap forward, broadening the use of the technology to a far greater range of users who can interact with Maven in natural language.

For now, this capability is supplied by Anthropic's Claude - though that arrangement is coming to a bitter end after the Pentagon bristled at the AI lab's demand that its model not be used for fully automated strikes or the tracking of US citizens. The ethical question was a factor in Maven's early years, when Google was the program's original AI contractor.

In 2018, more than 3,000 employees signed an open letter protesting the company's involvement, arguing that the contract crossed a line. Several engineers resigned. Google declined to renew when the contract expired, and subsequently published AI principles explicitly ruling out participation in weapons systems. The episode exposed a fault line in Silicon Valley between engineers who viewed autonomous targeting as an ethical red line and defense officials who saw it as essential.

More recently, Google removed its AI policy restrictions and said it is leaning further into national security work. The Pentagon has said that Google, along with xAI and OpenAI, are in the mix to replace Claude in Maven. In 2024, Palantir - founded in part with CIA seed funding and built from the start around government intelligence work - stepped into the space Google vacated. The company has reportedly become Maven's primary technology contractor, and its AI now forms the operational backbone of the program.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp frames the stakes explicitly. "This is a have, have-not world," he said at a recent Palantir event, arguing that it was important for the West to achieve capabilities the rest of the world lacked. A system that compresses a kill chain from hours to seconds makes an adversary obsolete, he said. The Pentagon and Palantir declined to comment on Maven's performance in the current war with Iran.

US strikes have been carried out at a sustained pace, and it can be assumed that Maven's ability to speed up the targeting and firing process has played a central role. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, after three weeks the US strike campaign settled into a pace of between 300 and 500 targets per day. In the first 24 hours of Operation Epic Fury, US forces struck over 1,000 targets, including a school housed in a building previously used as a military complex, according to various media reports. Iran has said the attack killed 168 children aged seven to 12 and wounded many other people.

The milestone was hit around two days, five hours and 24 minutes after liftoff, according to the NASA official broadcast. The US space agency's online dashboard showed that the Orion spacecraft carrying the astronauts is now more than 219,000 kilometres (136,080 miles) from Earth. "We're halfway there," NASA posted on social media.

The spacecraft's next milestone will be entering the lunar sphere of influence, set to take place on day five of the flight, according to NASA. The astronauts -- Americans Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian Jeremy Hansen -- are now on a "free-return" trajectory, which uses the Moon's gravity to slingshot around it before heading back towards Earth without propulsion.

"Australia's world-leading social media laws are not failing. But big tech is failing to obey the laws," Communications Minister Anika Wells told reporters. "Australia will not let the social media giants take us for mugs." Australia's eSafety Commission flagged "significant concerns" about Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. "None of this is impossible. None of this is even difficult for big tech, who are innovative billion dollar companies," Wells said. "If these companies want to do business in Australia, they must obey Australian laws."

Australia would decide any punishments by mid-2026. Tech companies face fines of up to $33.9 million (Aus$49.5 million) under the laws. More than five million accounts belonging to underage Australian users have been removed since the laws came into effect, the eSafety Commission said. A growing body of research suggests too much time online is taking a toll on teen well-being. Australia's ban has been hailed as a godsend for parents sick of seeing children glued to their phones.

It has also drawn interest across the globe -- with Malaysia, France, New Zealand and Indonesia among the nations now eyeing similar measures. Although social media companies have pledged to abide by the laws, they have warned the measures could instead push teenagers into dark, unregulated corners of the internet. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said accurately proving users' ages had been "a challenge for the whole industry". It told AFP it would "keep investing in enforcement to detect and remove under-16 accounts". Image-sharing platform Snapchat told AFP it was "fully committed to implementing reasonable steps under the legislation" and had so far locked 450,000 accounts.

TikTok said it had no comment, while inquiries on YouTube did not receive a reply. Social media companies bear the sole responsibility for checking that Australia-based users are 16 or older. They must prove they have taken "reasonable steps" to weed out young teenagers, although it remains unclear how this will be interpreted by the government. Some platforms have said they would use AI tools to estimate ages based on photos, while users could also choose to prove their age by uploading a government ID.

Online discussion site Reddit has filed a legal challenge against Australia's ban, which it described as "legally erroneous". The US-based company said there were serious privacy concerns associated with platforms verifying age, with the collection of personal data creating a risk of leaks or hacks. Reddit's challenge is yet to be heard in Australia's High Court. 

The rise of AI agents that tend to computer tasks on demand has put users in the position of managing smart, fast digital workers rather than having to grind through jobs themselves. "It's a brand-new kind of cognitive load," said Ben Wigler, co-founder of the start-up LoveMind AI. "You have to really babysit these models." People experiencing AI burnout are not casually dabbling with the technology -- They are creating legions of agents that need to be constantly managed, according to Tim Norton, founder of the AI integration consultancy nouvreLabs.

"That's what's causing the burnout," Norton wrote in an X post. However, BCG and others do not see it as a case of AI causing people to get burned out on their jobs. A BCG study of 1,488 professionals in the United States actually found a decline in burnout rates when AI took over repetitive work tasks. For now, "brain fry" is primarily a bane for software developers given that AI agents have excelled quickly at writing computer code.

"The cruel irony is that AI-generated code requires more careful review than human-written code," software engineer Siddhant Khare wrote in a blog post. "It is very scary to commit to hundreds of lines of AI-written code because there is a risk of security flaws or simply not understanding the entire codebase," added Adam Mackintosh, a programmer for a Canadian company. And if AI agents are not kept on course by a human, they could misunderstand an instruction and wander down an errant processing path, resulting in a business paying for wasted computing power.

Wigler noted that the promise of hitting goals fast with AI tempts tech start-up teams already prone to long workdays to lose track of time and stay on the job even deeper into the night. "There is a unique kind of reward hacking that can go on when you have productivity at the scale that encourages even later hours," Wigler said.

Mackintosh recalled spending 15 consecutive hours fine-tuning around 25,000 lines of code in an application. "At the end, I felt like I couldn't code anymore," he recalled. "I could tell my dopamine was shot because I was irritable and didn't want to answer basic questions about my day." A musician and teacher who asked to remain anonymous spoke of struggling to put his brain "on pause", instead spending evenings experimenting with AI.

Nonetheless, everyone interviewed for this story expressed overall positive views of AI despite the downsides. BCG recommends in a recently published study that company leaders establish clear limits regarding employee use and supervision of AI. However, "That self-care piece is not really an America workplace value," Wigler said. "So, I am very skeptical as to whether or not its going to be healthy or even high quality in the long term."

The immense orange and white Space Launch System rocket and the Orion vessel were to be slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved four miles (6.5 kilometers) to Launch Pad 39B. If the tests are satisfactory, three Americans and one Canadian will head to the Moon as soon as early April to fly around Earth's satellite.

The mission, to last about 10 days, would be a huge step towards Americans once again setting foot on the lunar surface, a goal announced by President Donald Trump in his first term. But that ambition has been plagued by delays. Late last month NASA detected an issue with helium flow and decided to roll the Artemis 2 stack -- which weighs 11 million pounds -- back into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to investigate the technical issues and make any necessary repairs.

That took a March launch out of the question. Before that setback, NASA had found technical problems including a liquid hydrogen leak that cut short a so-called wet dress rehearsal for the launch. The agency is now hopeful the first crewed flyby in more than half a century could get off the ground in early April. The first opportunity is April 1, and several more follow in the subsequent days. Meanwhile the Artemis 2 astronaut crew entered quarantine on Wednesday in Houston as they prepare for the eventual historic journey.

"We're working with our partners on a new computer called Vera Rubin Space One," Huang said as he kicked off the GPU-maker's annual developers conference in Silicon Valley. "It's going to go out to space and start data centers." Partners in the project include Starcloud, which is planning a November satellite launch that will mark the "cosmic debut" of the new Nvidia module.

A Starcloud-1 satellite, about the size of a small refrigerator, is expected to be packed with 100 times more computing power than any previous space-based operation. "In 10 years, nearly all new data centers will be being built in outer space," predicted Starcloud co-founder and chief Philip Johnston. The startup explained that it plans to power Google AI with the Nvidia GPUs to show that large language models can run in outer space.

Nvidia described the Vera Rubin module as being optimized for AI, enabling real-time sensing, decision making, and autonomous functioning. "Space computing, the final frontier, has arrived," Huang said. "With our partners, we're extending Nvidia beyond our planet - boldly taking intelligence where it's never gone before."

Tech firms are floating the idea of building data centers in space and tapping into the sun's energy to meet out-of-this-world power demands in a fierce artificial intelligence race. More than a dozen startups, aerospace leaders, and major tech firms are involved in the development, testing, or planning of space-based data centers. The big draw of space for data centers is power supply, with the option of synchronizing satellites to the sun's orbit to ensure constant light beaming onto solar panels.

Building in space also avoids the challenges of acquiring land and meeting local regulations or community resistance to projects. Critical technical aspects of such operations need to be resolved, however, particularly damage to the orbiting data centers from high levels of radiation and extreme temperatures, and the danger of them being hit by space junk.

"The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026," she added. The ban will be introduced in stages "until all platforms fulfil their compliance obligations." TikTok Indonesia and Google Indonesia did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A European Union expert group began work this week on a similar social media ban for children after Australia in December required TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and other sites to remove accounts held by under-16s.

Brussels is keeping a close eye on how successful the Australian ban proves to be, with legal challenges already filed against it. France, along with Denmark, Greece and Spain, has been pushing for similar action at EU level, and India has been considering a teen social media ban of its own. Meutya said the government understood the new regulation "may cause some initial inconvenience" for users in Indonesia, but "we believe that this is the best step the Government must take in the midst of a digital emergency." She added: "We are taking this step to reclaim the sovereignty of our children's future. We want technology to humanise humans, not sacrifice our children's childhood."

In Brazil, the firm sued B&B Suplementos e Cosmeticos and Brites Academia de Treinamento as well as two individuals for "a scam operation that used deepfakes of a prominent physician to advertise healthcare products without regulatory approval." Brites also "sold courses teaching the same tactics," according to Meta. Renowned Brazilian oncologist Drauzio Varella was one of the public figures impersonated by Brites, and stated that Meta's legal actions are insufficient.

It's "a drop in the ocean of fraud against public health," the doctor told the O Globo newspaper. Varella said Meta's platforms were "partners in the fraud" because of their reach. "They earn billions by spreading this and ensuring the video reaches as many people as possible," he told the newspaper. The US company also sued Vitor Lourenco de Souza and Milena Luciani Sanchez for similar practices in Brazil.

In China, Meta sued Shenzhen Yunzheng Technology over "celeb-bait ads to target people in the US and Japan, among other countries, as part of a larger fraud scheme that lured people into joining so-called investment groups," the company said. The tech giant also sued Vietnamese company Ly Van Lam for publishing fraudulent advertisements for Longchamp luxury handbags.

Altman, CEO of the company behind ChatGPT, has called for oversight in the past but said last year that taking too tight an approach could hold the United States back in the AI race. "Centralisation of this technology, in one company or country, could lead to ruin," the 40-year-old said on Thursday. "This is not to suggest that we won't need any regulation or safeguards. We obviously do, urgently, like we have for other powerful technologies."  India'sAI Impact Summit is the fourth annual gathering to discuss the risks and opportunities posed by rapidly advancing computing power.

It is the largest yet and the first in a developing country, with India taking the opportunity to push its ambitions to catch up with the United States and China. India expects more than $200 billion in investments over the next two years, and US tech titans unveiled new deals and infrastructure projects this week.

Many say stronger action is needed to combat emerging issues, such as job disruption, online abuse and the electricity demands of data centres. But the broad focus of the New Delhi event, and vague promises made at the previous summits in France, South Korea and Britain, could make concrete commitments unlikely. Even so, "governance of powerful technologies typically begins with shared language: what risks matter, what thresholds are unacceptable", said Niki Iliadis, director of global AI governance at The Future Society. "It's true that AI companies are influential, but they are not sovereign," she told AFP.

Discussions at the Delhi summit, attended by tens of thousands from across the AI industry, including top tech CEOs, have covered big topics from child protections to job losses and the need for more equal access to AI tools worldwide. "We are entering an era where humans and intelligence systems co-create, co-work and co-evolve," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday. "We must resolve that AI is used for the global common good." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on tech tycoons to support a $3 billion global fund to boost AI skills and make computing power more affordable.

"The future of AI cannot be decided by a handful of countries -- or left to the whims of a few billionaires," he said. 

"Modern warfare is now impossible without drones," Koleso, a Ukrainian infantry soldier, told AFP in eastern Ukraine. The front line has been transformed into a "kill zone" stretching up to 20 kilometres (12 miles) deep -- "an area between two sides where nothing can survive because it's constantly monitored by drones", military expert Kateryna Bondar explained. Soldiers can only operate there in small groups, moving fast and with their eyes fixed to the sky, hoping to stay undetected.

Heavy pieces of artillery, as well as sluggish tanks and armoured vehicles, are too slow and visible -- making them easy targets for both sides. Unwilling to send more men that necessary into the kill zone, Ukrainian troops use ground drones to ferry supplies to dangerous areas and to evacuate wounded soldiers. Maintaining a stable connection between the drone and its operator, controlling it remotely, is a crucial task.

"That's where the real race is happening -- communications and connections," Bondar said. Initially, most drones operated on a radio connection. But they proved vulnerable to electronic warfare -- the practice of jamming and intercepting enemy craft, causing them to drop out of the sky or lose connection to the operator. Russia has turned to drones controlled by ultra-thin fibre-optic cables, largely immune to electronic jamming. In scenes that resemble a dystopian sci-fi movie, their widespread use has left swathes of frontline cities and fields entombed in webs of cable.

In another alternative to radio control, Ukrainians have begun attaching Starlink terminals to drones. This allows them to fly using a satellite internet connection. "We need to fly far away with a stable video signal and stable control," said Phoenix, a commander from Ukraine's Lasar Group, a pioneer in the use of Starlink. Russian troops soon started copying, until Ukraine pushed Elon Musk last month to disable unauthorised Russian terminals. The move disrupted both Russian and Ukrainian systems, military observers said.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said the switch-off likely helped enable a localised, but rapid, Ukrainian advance in the southern Zaporizhzhia region in early February. The spread of drones has forced a revamp of air defence systems. Firing advanced missiles -- which can cost millions -- to down drones worth just a fraction of that is too expensive a response. Alongside jamming, Ukraine has also developed cheap interceptor drones built specially to destroy other craft mid-air. "We opened the chapter of the war of drones with drones," said Marko Kushnir of General Cherry, a leading interceptor drone maker.

Roads near the front have been equipped with protective nets attempting to stop attacking drones, while trucks fitted with anti-drone cages and drone jammers speed along them. Machine guns are also a last resort to shoot down drones from the sky. Ukraine's Western allies have increasingly looked to Kyiv's experience after Russian drones made repeat incursions into European airspace in recent months. Engineers are racing to equip drones with artificial intelligence to improve their performance. Ukrainian firms such as The Fourth Law (TFL) say they have developed so-called terminal guidance, which allows AI to take control of a device in the final moments before impact.

This is meant to improve the accuracy of strikes, especially as connection is typically lost in the final moments before a hit. "Russia and China are also developing such technologies, and if our countries don't... we will lose," said TFL's Maksym Savanevskyi. But full autonomy remains some way off. "AI is performing a helping function rather than substituting human," said Bondar, the military expert. "I thought they could simply remove people from battle equipment, that it could be fully automated. That's a naive view," said former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, now head of SwiftBeat, a company that supplies AI drones to Ukraine's army.

"For the foreseeable future, you'll have drones first, people second," he told a conference in Kyiv. All the way on the eastern front, Koleso said foot soldiers would always remain relevant. "Until you plant the flag yourself, with your own hands, and take the position, it cannot be considered yours," he said.

"The homepage is back, but we're still working on a full fix," it said. Tracking website Down Detector reported over 300,000 reports of problems from its user base, though the reports seemed to be diminishing after a peak at about 0100 GMT. During the worst of the outage, visitors to the website's homepage were greeted with an invitation to come back later. Google-owned YouTube is the world's largest video sharing platform, with over 2.5 billion users actively using the site each month.

It will examine "the alleged creation and publication on X of potentially harmful, non-consensual intimate or sexualised images involving Europeans, including children," generated using the tool, said the DPC. "The purpose of this investigation is to determine whether X complied with its obligations under the GDPR ... with regard to the personal data processed of EU/EEA data subjects," it said. As X's European operations has its headquarters in Ireland, the DPC is the lead regulator in Europe for applying EU rules on the platform.

DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle said the authority has "been engaging" with X "since media reports first emerged a number of weeks ago concerning the alleged ability of X users to prompt the Grok account on X to generate sexualised images of real people, including children". In response to the outcry over the deepfakes, some countries announced in January that they were launching probes into Grok, increasing regulatory pressure, or even blocking it altogether. The European Union opened its own probe into whether X had met legal obligations under the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA), which is designed to police internet giants.

Under fire, X said last month it was restricting Grok's image generation and editing to paying subscribers. Regulation of US tech giants, including X, has been at the heart of growing tensions between the EU and Washington since Donald Trump's return to power. The Irish move comes despite repeated US threats of retaliation against enforcement of tech rules that Trump's administration seeks to frame as attacks on free speech and unfair targeting of US firms. The DPC said it notified Musk's social network on Monday that the investigation had been opened.

Contacted by AFP, X had not responded Monday evening. The Irish regulator had already opened an investigation in April 2025 into X's use of certain personal data to train its AI models, particularly Grok.

Alphabet did not respond to a request for comment. Alphabet and AI race rivals including Amazon, Meta, Microsoft are investing staggering amounts in infrastructure to power the technology, banking on it paying off. Market reaction, though, has been mixed with some investors worried spending has gone overboard. Century-long bond issues by companies are a rarity, and especially for Alphabet which has ample online ad revenue available to pay for investments rather than resorting to debt.

But, the rush to lead in AI has changed the game, calling for unprecedented spending on data centers, energy generation and more. Alphabet allocated $91 billion to spending on computing infrastructure last year and has told financial analysts it expects to spend from $175 billion to $185 billion on it this year. Alphabet has ramped up longterm debt to handle the spending surge, issuing 50-year bonds late last year. While 100-year bonds are not new, it has been decades since US companies have resorted to them. Companies such as Disney, Coca-Cola, FedEx, Ford, and Motorola turned to such century-long debt during the 1990s.

"For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years," Musk said in a post on X, the social media platform he bought in 2022. Difficulties in reaching Mars include the fact that "it is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months." "We can launch to the Moon every 10 days," he added.

Musk has blown through several previous estimates on when he could feasibly put man on the Red Planet. In 2016, Musk said passengers could take off for Mars as soon as 2024, if financing and other planning factors for his rockets came through. That prediction came after he told the Wall Street Journal in 2011 that SpaceX astronauts would reach Mars in "Best case, 10 years, worst case, 15 to 20 years."

In an executive order on US space policy late last year, Trump said he wanted to get Americans to the Moon by 2028, under NASA's Artemis program, for which SpaceX is a contractor. That marked a shift from Trump's earlier declaration that he wanted to plant the American flag on Mars before the end of his four-year term. Americans are currently scheduled to return to the Moon's surface in mid-2027 on the Artemis 3 mission, but the timeline has been repeatedly pushed back.

Industry experts say it will probably be delayed again because the lunar lander in development at SpaceX is not ready. Easier access to the Moon "means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city," Musk said Sunday. But he added that SpaceX would not give up on its Mars plans, saying it would "also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years."

In a new study, US disinformation watchdog NewsGuard prompted three leading image generators to create photos of Epstein with five politicians including President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Emmanuel Macron. Grok Imagine, a tool developed by Elon Musk's xAI, produced "convincing fakes in seconds" with all five, the study said.

That included a fake but lifelike image purporting to show a younger Trump and Epstein surrounded by young girls. Trump has been photographed with Epstein at multiple social events but there is no publicly known picture of the pair in the presence of underage girls. Google's Gemini declined to generate an image depicting Epstein with Trump but produced realistic photos of the late sex offender with four other politicians -- Netanyahu and Macron as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the study said.

The fabricated photos purported to show Epstein with the politicians at parties, aboard a private jet and relaxing on a beach. "The findings demonstrate the ease with which bad actors can use AI imaging tools to generate realistic-seeming viral fakes -- and why fake images have become so routine that it's difficult to tell authentic images from AI-generated images," NewsGuard said. When the watchdog prompted OpenAI's ChatGPT, it declined to produce any images showing Epstein with the politicians.

In its response, ChatGPT said it is "not able to create images involving real people with sexualized depictions of minors or scenarios that imply sexual abuse." There was no immediate response to AFP's request for comment from xAI. In its review of the fake images of Epstein with Mamdani and Nair -- which racked up millions of views on X -- researchers including those at AFP detected a SynthID, an invisible watermark meant to identify content created using Google's AI.

A Google spokesman told AFP: "We make it easy to determine if content is made with Google AI by embedding an imperceptible SynthID watermark." The study comes after the Justice Department last week released the latest cache of so-called Epstein files -- more than three million documents, photos and videos related to its investigation into Epstein, who died from what was determined to be suicide while in custody in 2019. The Epstein affair has entangled high-profile figures across the globe, from Britain's former prince Andrew to renowned American intellectual Noam Chomsky and Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit.

But it has also prompted a wave of disinformation. This week, a fake Trump social media post circulated across platforms, AFP's fact-checkers reported. The fabricated post purported to show Trump pledging to drop all tariffs against Canada if Prime Minister Mark Carney admitted to involvement with Epstein. AFP's review of Carney's references in the files do not indicate any involvement with Epstein's alleged crimes.

The agency filed a notice of appeal to the DC Circuit Court, beginning a long process that could make its way to the Supreme Court. In response to the appeal, a Meta spokesperson said the court's decision to dismiss the FTC's arguments was "correct, and recognizes the fierce competition we face." "We will remain focused on innovating and investing in America," the Meta spokesperson added. US District Judge James Boasberg's November ruling delivered a major victory to Meta, ending a legal battle launched in 2020 over the company's 2012 Instagram and 2014 WhatsApp acquisitions.

Boasberg concluded that Meta faces sufficient competition from rivals TikTok and YouTube to prevent it from exercising monopoly power. "Meta holds no monopoly in the relevant market," the judge wrote, noting that Facebook and Instagram now primarily show users algorithm-recommended short videos nearly identical to TikTok's format. The court cited data showing Americans spend only 17 percent of their Facebook time viewing friends' content and just seven percent on Instagram, with users predominantly watching "Reels" -- short videos from strangers.

A senior FTC official said the judge took "a very odd path" by basing his ruling solely on Meta's market position at the time of trial instead of over a longer period. This approach "was a fundamental error that let him just sweep its misconduct under the rug," the official said, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. Boasberg's ruling marked another setback for US antitrust enforcers pursuing aggressive action against Big Tech, with mixed results in court.

The government has launched five major cases against tech giants in recent years, including two against Google and suits against Apple and Amazon. In September, a different judge rejected a government bid to break up Google after finding the search giant acted as an illegal monopoly. Google appealed that ruling last week.

"It is clear that eSafety's regulatory guidance and engagement with platforms is already delivering significant outcomes," she said in a statement. Australia has required big platforms including Meta, TikTok and YouTube to stop underage users from holding accounts since the legislation came into force on December 10 last year.

Companies face fines of Aus$49.5 million (US$33 million) if they fail to take "reasonable steps" to comply. Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg's Meta said last week it had removed 331,000 underage accounts from Instagram, 173,000 from Facebook, and 40,000 from Threads in the week to December 11. But Meta repeated its call for app stores to be required to verify people's ages and get parental approval before under-16s can download an app. This was the only way to avoid a "whack-a-mole" race to stop teens migrating to new apps to avoid the ban, the company said.

Australia's eSafety Commissioner said it takes time to verify ages accurately, but it expects platforms to improve their performance. "It is also the responsibility of industry to prevent circumvention, as outlined in eSafety's industry guidance," the regulator said. Inman Grant said it was too early to say whether platforms were complying completely but early signs were encouraging. "While some kids may find creative ways to stay on social media, it's important to remember that just like other safety laws we have in society, success is measured by reduction in harm and in resetting cultural norms," she said.

Downloads of lesser known platforms such as BlueSky and Lemon8 surged ahead of the implementation of the teen social media ban. But both social media sites recognised that they were covered by the legislation, and they were cooperating with the Australian regulator, Inman Grant said. "Given the vast number of online services and the fast-evolving nature of the tech industry, it's impossible to list all of the services which meet the conditions and are obliged to comply with the social media minimum age obligation," she said. "As I have said for some time now, our compliance focus will remain on platforms with the highest number of Australian users." 

On Thursday (15 January), a visit to the HONOR Bangladesh showroom at Police Plaza in the capital revealed that the cash price of the HONOR 400 Lite smartphone is set at BDT 32,999. However, if a customer chooses to purchase the same phone on a six-month installment plan with a 50 percent down payment, they must pay an additional BDT 9,000 on the remaining BDT 16,500. As a result, a phone priced at approximately BDT 33,000 ends up costing nearly BDT 42,000. In effect, more than 55 percent extra is being charged under the name of installment convenience—completely contradicting the concept of “easy installments” and placing significant financial pressure on consumers.

Further discussions with a sales representative at the Police Plaza HONOR showroom revealed that the installment software for the recently launched X9D model is not yet fully operational. However, the representative stated that customers can currently obtain the phone by paying a 50 percent down payment.

Experts say that when calculated as interest, this rate translates into an alarmingly high annual interest rate, which cannot reasonably be described as an installment facility. Instead, they describe it as a carefully designed financial trap.

An even more serious allegation is that if a customer is late by even one day in paying an installment, the company remotely locks the phone. As a result, the device suddenly becomes unusable, disrupting important office calls, mobile banking, health services, and family communication. Despite paying for the phone, customers do not retain full control over their own devices—the control remains with the company’s server.

Tech expert Mirajul Islam stated that remotely controlling a customer’s personal device is a grave violation of digital privacy, data security, and consumer rights. Locking a phone without a court order is illegal and unconstitutional, according to legal and technology analysts.

There are also allegations that installment agreements do not clearly disclose the interest rate or the calculation of additional charges. Complex and ambiguous terms are allegedly used to mislead ordinary customers, which amounts to outright deception.

Mahiyuddin, President of the Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumers Association, said that mobile device companies are charging up to 55 percent extra interest under the name of installment sales, which is a direct fraud against consumers. He added that while the government has announced a 60 percent reduction in duties to lower smartphone prices, and senior government advisors have spoken about price reductions, extracting additional money from customers in this manner is clearly against consumer protection laws. He called for immediate and strict action by the BTRC and the National Consumer Rights Protection Directorate, along with punitive measures against those responsible.

So far, no official statement has been received from HONOR Mobile Bangladesh. If a statement is received, it will be added to the report.

Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb said the new platforms will address capacity constraints at BCC and enable microservice-based digital services through a CNCF-certified Kubernetes PaaS with built-in automation, security, CI/CD, high availability and disaster recovery features. He said the GPU cloud, integrating over 20 NVIDIA Volta architecture GPUs, will support higher education, research, generative AI, machine learning and high-performance computing, marking the first shared cloud facility of its kind in the public sector.

The platforms will also help ensure compliance with the Personal Data Protection, National Data Management and Cyber Safety Ordinances 2025, he added. The infrastructure has been established under the World Bank-funded "Digital Government and Economy Strengthening Project" implemented by the ICT Division. ICT Division Secretary Shish Haider Chowdhury, World Bank Digital Development Specialist Suparna Roy and senior officials were present at the event.

However, uncertainty has grown over how much demand there will be from Chinese companies, as Beijing has reportedly been encouraging tech companies to use homegrown chips. Chinese officials have informed some tech companies they would only approve buying H200 chips under special circumstances, such as development labs or university research, news website The Information reported on Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the situation.

The Information had previously reported that Chinese officials were calling on companies there to pause H200 purchases while they deliberated requiring them to buy a certain ratio of AI chips made by Nvidia rivals in China. In its official update on Tuesday, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) said it had changed the licensing review policy for H200 and similar chips from a presumption of denial to handling applications case by case.

Trump announced on December 9, 2025 that he had reached an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping to allow Nvidia to export its H200 chips to China, with the US government getting a 25-percent cut of sales. The move marked a significant shift in US export policy for advanced AI chips, which Joe Biden's administration had heavily restricted over national security concerns about Chinese military applications. Democrats in Congress have criticized the shift as a huge mistake that will help the Chinese military and economy.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has advocated for the company to be allowed to sell some of its more advanced chips in China, arguing the importance of AI systems around the world being built on US technology. The chips -- graphic processing units or GPUs -- are used to train the AI models that are the bedrock of the generative AI revolution launched with the release of ChatGPT in 2022.

The GPU sector is dominated by Nvidia, now the world's most valuable company thanks to frenzied global demand and optimism for AI. China and the United States are competing for dominance in AI. H200s are roughly 18 months behind the US company's most state-of-the-art offerings, which will still be off-limits to China.

Access remained spotty to the social media network owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who engaged in heated online exchanges with the ousted Venezuelan leader, until Maduro lashed out in retaliation for criticism of his contested 2024 election and shut X down. After the July 2024 election, Maduro was declared the winner amid allegations of fraud and suspended the platform in August.

Prior to that, X had been a prominent social media network for Venezuelans, but the blockade meant ministers, lawmakers and government institutions stopped updating their pages. Rodriguez assumed power after Maduro was captured by US military forces on January 3 along with his wife, during attacks that left more than 100 dead, according to official figures. The couple faces US charges of alleged drug trafficking.

Maduro's X account was also updated with a photo of the deposed leader and his wife, Cilia Flores. "We want you back," the post reads. 

Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg's Meta said it had removed 331,000 underage accounts from Instagram, 173,000 from Facebook, and 40,000 from Threads in the week to December 11. The company said it was committed to complying with the law. "That said, we call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans," it said in statement.

- 'Whack-a-mole' -

Meta renewed an earlier call for app stores to be required to verify people's ages and get parental approval before under-16s can download an app. This was the only way to avoid a "whack-a-mole" race to stop teens migrating to new apps to avoid the ban, the company said. The government said it was holding social media companies to account for the harm they cause young Australians. "Platforms like Meta collect a huge amount of data on their users for commercial purposes. They can and must use that information to comply with Australian law and ensure people under 16 are not on their platforms," a government spokesperson said.

Meta said parents and experts were worried about the ban isolating young people from online communities, and driving some to less regulated apps and darker corners of the internet. Initial impacts of the legislation "suggest it is not meeting its objectives of increasing the safety and well-being of young Australians", it said. While raising concern over the lack of an industry standard for determining age online, Meta said its compliance with the Australian law would be a "multilayered process". Since the ban, the California-based firm said it had helped found the OpenAge Initiative, a non-profit group that has launched age-verification tools called AgeKeys to be used with participating platforms.

The outcry prompted Singaporean startup FoloToy to temporarily suspend sales of the bears. FoloToy chief executive Wang Le told AFP that the company switched to a more advanced version of the OpenAI model used. When PIRG tested the toy for the report, "they used some words children would not use," Wang Le said.

He expressed confidence that the updated bear would either evade or not answer inappropriate questions. Toy giant Mattel, meanwhile, made no mention of the report in mid-December when it postponed the release of its first toy developed in partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. The rapid advancement of generative AI since ChatGPT's arrival has paved the way for a new generation of smart toys.

Among the four devices tested by PIRG was Curio's Grok -- not to be confused with xAI's voice assistant -- a four-legged stuffed toy inspired by a rocket that has been on the market since 2024. The top performer in its class, Grok refused to answer questions unsuitable for a five-year-old. It also allowed parents to override the algorithm's recommendations with their own and to review the content of interactions with young users.

Curio has received the independent KidSAFE label, which certifies that child protection standards are being applied. However, the plush rocket is also designed to continuously listen for questions, raising privacy concerns about what it does with what is said around it. Curio told AFP it was working to address concerns raised in the PIRG report about user data being shared with partners such as OpenAI and Perplexity.

"At the very least, parents should be cautious," Rory Erlich of PIRG said about having chatbot-enabled toys in the house. "Toys that retain information about a child over time and try to form an ongoing relationship should especially be of concern." Chatbots in toys do create opportunities for them to serve as tutors of sorts. Turkish company Elaves says its round, yellow toy Sunny will be equipped with a chatbot to help children learn languages. "Conversations are time-limited, naturally guided to end, and reset regularly to prevent drifting, confusion, or overuse," said Elaves managing partner Gokhan Celebi.

This was to answer the tendency that AI chatbots get into trouble -- spouting errors or going off the rails -- when conversations drag on. Olli, which specializes in integrating AI into toys, has programmed its software to alert parents when inappropriate words or phrases are spoken during exchanges with built-in bots. For critics, letting toy makers police themselves on the AI front is insufficient. "Why aren't we regulating these toys?" asks Temple University psychology professor Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. "I'm not anti-tech, but they rushed ahead without guardrails, and that's unfair to kids and unfair to parents."

Unlike rivals focused on single categories, Lenovo was the only major manufacturer whose offering spanned laptops, tablets and smartphones -- under its Motorola brand, acquired in 2014 -- as well as servers and even supercomputers. The company also unveiled prototypes of connected glasses and an AI-powered pendant, still in testing, that captures "important moments" with user consent by recording conversations, said Motorola's Angelina Gomez.

Codenamed the AI Perceptive Companion, the pendant features a microphone and camera and "sees what you see and hears what your hear," Lenovo vice president Luca Rossi told reporters. An interaction with Qira can start via the pendant, continue on a smartphone and end on a laptop, with the agent retaining user context across devices. It can summarize the highlights of a user's day, draft and send emails, or even select photos from archives to post on social media.

Lenovo stressed it is not positioning Qira as a rival to Microsoft's Copilot and announced the integration of Copilot into Motorola smartphones. For major hardware makers, the challenge now is proving the utility of generative AI in everyday applications rather than simply flaunting cutting-edge tech. Amid lingering geopolitical tensions with Washington, Lenovo was the only Chinese firm to take center stage at CES, choosing Las Vegas's futuristic Sphere venue for its showcase. Executives emphasized the company's global footprint, with most revenue generated outside China and several top managers from overseas.

High-priced memory chips used in AI data centres were in strong demand, they added. South Korean tech juggernaut Samsung Electronics is one of the world's top memory-chip makers, providing crucial components for the AI industry and the infrastructure it relies on. South Korea is also home to SK hynix, another key player in the global semiconductor market.

Cars, South Korea's other key export, also performed strongly, with auto shipments rising to $72 billion, the highest on record despite US tariff pressures. Asia's fourth-largest economy was initially hit with a 25 percent across-the-board tariff by the United States but managed to secure a last-minute agreement for a reduced 15 percent rate. South Korea is one of Washington's biggest trade partners.

In letters sent by the Income Tax Intelligence and Investigation Unit of the NBR’s Tax Commissioner’s Office to all scheduled banks and financial institutions, authorities have requested information on all types of bank accounts held in the name of Abu Saeed Pias. Acting under Section 200 of the Income Tax Act, 2023, the request covers savings and current accounts, fixed deposits (FDR), STD accounts, credit card transactions, as well as locker and vault information. Banks have been instructed to submit half-yearly transaction statements from July 1, 2018 to the present within seven days.

According to sources, Sumash Tech has long been abusing the “luggage party” facility to illegally import expensive flagship smartphones from China, Vietnam, Dubai, and India. These devices are allegedly promoted through popular YouTubers to attract customers. While the company earns millions of taka by selling such “unofficial” phones, the state reportedly receives no customs duty or tax. It is further alleged that a large portion of the proceeds is laundered abroad through hundi channels.

Market insiders say this syndicate is not only evading revenue but also putting severe pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserves. The influx of illegally imported phones is crippling legitimate manufacturers and authorized importers. If this luggage-party-based smuggling is not stopped, government revenue collection from the technology sector could collapse. Following the ACC’s investigation into Apple Gadgets, instability had already gripped the gadget market—now intensified by the move against Sumash Tech.

Sources say the collected bank data will be cross-checked with income tax returns. If discrepancies between income and assets or evidence of tax evasion are found, strict legal action will be taken against Sumash Tech. Attempts to contact owner Abu Saeed Pias for comments were initially unsuccessful.

However, Abu Saeed Pias later stated that Sumash Tech has not yet received any official document, notice, or letter from the NBR regarding the request for bank account information. The company claims no such communication has reached them so far. Once official and relevant documents are received, Sumash Tech says it will review the matter and submit an appropriate response to the NBR via email.

According to sources, the company’s owner and Managing Director, Mohammad Saif Mahmud, has long faced allegations of illegally importing smartphones. Taking these allegations into account, the ACC’s Special Investigation Unit formally ordered an inquiry on December 17. The allegations state that the company smuggles high-end flagship smartphones from Vietnam, China, Dubai, and India by using so-called “luggage party” channels, while illegally transferring US dollars abroad.

Investigators claim that the smuggled phones are sold in the local market as “unofficial” devices, and the proceeds from these sales are again laundered overseas through hundi networks. It is alleged that this syndicate has laundered more than thousands of crores of taka. Furthermore, refurbished and stolen phones are allegedly promoted through popular YouTubers to attract young buyers, while a large portion of sales revenue is conducted outside formal banking channels. As a result, the government is losing substantial tax revenue, and additional pressure is being placed on the country’s foreign currency reserves.

Meanwhile, the NBR has intensified efforts to verify income and expenditure transparency. Sources say that, in addition to Mohammad Saif Mahmud, bank transaction details of directors Shariful Islam and Abdullah Al Faruqi have been requested. Information on their savings accounts, current accounts, fixed deposit receipts (FDRs), and credit card transactions has been sought from all scheduled banks and financial institutions across the country.

Another source stated that the company imports illegal mobile phones worth crores of taka annually, depriving the government of an estimated crores of taka in revenue each year. Experts warn that if such irregularities through luggage-party channels continue, legitimate manufacturers and importers will suffer severe losses.

NBR officials confirmed that the bank information received will be cross-checked with submitted income tax returns. Under the Income Tax Act 2023, strict legal action will be taken against those concerned if any discrepancies are proven.

For instance, the Vivo Y-29 model is currently sold at a cash price of BDT 23,999. However, if purchased in a six-month installment plan, customers end up paying nearly BDT 29,000—an extra BDT 5,000 in just six months. In a nine-month installment plan, the phone costs about BDT 31,000, approximately BDT 7,000 more than the original price. Experts say this is effectively a method of charging interest.

Other allegations include certain Vivo smartphones requiring customers to pay an extra BDT 15,000–20,000, which can be considered interest. Consumer rights specialists claim that such additional charges under the guise of installments clearly fall under interest-based business practices. However, it is alleged that Vivo does not hold a legal license to conduct such financial operations as a mobile phone company.

Customers have reported being trapped by complicated and unclear installment contracts, which constitute a direct violation of the law. In more extreme cases, phones are remotely locked if a single installment is delayed, cutting off urgent work and family communications. One anonymous customer said, “I bought the phone, but control is in Vivo’s hands,” after suddenly losing access to the device.

Legal experts argue that remotely controlling a device owned by a customer is a severe breach of privacy and consumer rights. Concerned parties warn that if these allegations are not investigated and addressed promptly, other companies may adopt similar exploitative practices in the future.

In response, Vivo Bangladesh stated that the company prioritizes customer interests and operates transparently, complying with all relevant laws and regulations. All installment-related services are managed by a third-party fintech partner, Momo EMI.

However, the company did not provide a clear explanation regarding the allegations of charging nearly BDT 5,000 extra on a BDT 24,000 phone over six months or requiring BDT 15,000–20,000 additional payments on certain models. The issue of interest-based extra charges under the guise of installments was largely avoided in their statement.

Both firms make the advanced chips known as graphics processing units (GPUs) which run and train artificial intelligence tools. The GPU sector is dominated by Nvidia, now the world's most valuable company thanks to frenzied global demand and optimism for AI. MetaX and Moore Threads are much smaller firms but analysts say investors are buying into the prospect of China ramping up its chip industry to eventually rival the US giant.

Shares in MetaX -- which had been priced at 104.66 yuan (US$14.86) in an IPO that raised US$585.8 million -- soared as much as 755 percent to 895.00 yuan, before dropping slightly to 730.34 yuan. China and the United States are competing for dominance in AI, and Beijing has reportedly been encouraging tech companies to use homegrown chips owing to Washington's export restrictions on top-end Nvidia models. However, US President Donald Trump last week said he had agreed with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to allow Nvidia to export its advanced H200 chips to the country.

H200s are roughly 18 months behind the US company's most state-of-the-art offerings, which will still be off-limits to China. But the move marked a shift away from export curbs imposed by Trump's predecessor Joe Biden. Those restrictions were first implemented in 2022 over national security concerns such as the Chinese military gaining a technological advantage over the United States. Rui Ma, founder of the Tech Buzz China newsletter, told AFP this month that "export controls have created a protected high-end segment" for chips in China.

"Combined with policy support and much deeper capital pools, domestic GPU and AI accelerator companies now have far more favourable conditions than in prior cycles," she said. As a result, firms such as Moore Threads, Cambricon, MetaX, Biren, and Enflame are drawing significant investor interest."

It was carrying two more satellites of the European Union's Galileo programme, a global navigation satellite system that aims to make the bloc less dependent on the US's Global Positioning System (GPS). Applause rang out at the spaceport minutes before 7:00 am local time (1000 GMT) as it was confirmed that the satellites had been successfully deployed into orbit 23, 000 kilometres (14,000 miles) above Earth's surface. They will bring to 34 the number of Galileo satellites in orbit.

This addition will also "improve the robustness of the Galileo system by adding spares to the constellation to guarantee the system can provide 24/7 navigation to billions of users", according to the European Space Agency (ESA) which oversees the programme. According to the EU, Galileo is four times more accurate than GPS, providing navigation accuracy of up to one metre. The "successful" launch also reinforces "Europe's resilience and autonomy in space", the ESA said on X. - Reusable rockets wanted - Previous Galileo satellites were primarily launched by Ariane 5 and Russian Soyuz rockets from Kourou.

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Europe halted space cooperation with Moscow. The loss of Russia's Soyuz rockets -- and repeated delays to Ariane 6 -- left Europe without an independent way to blast missions into space for several months. Before Ariane 6's first commercial flight in March this year, the ESA resorted to contracting billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX to launch two Galileo satellites in September 2024. Ariane 6 also blasted a weather satellite into orbit in August followed by a satellite for the EU's observation programme Copernicus last month. Arianespace, the operator of the rocket system, in September reduced by one the number of commercial launches on Ariane 6 this year, vowing to roughly double its number of missions in 2026.

The next mission, planned for the first quarter of 2026, will be the first to use a four-booster version of Ariane 6, rather than the current two. It is scheduled to launch 34 satellites for the constellation of billionaire Jeff Bezos's Amazon. The constellation, formerly known as Project Kuiper, was recently renamed Amazon Leo. SpaceX has risen to dominate the booming commercial launch industry by developing rockets that are reusable -- which Ariane 6 is not. "We have to really catch up and make sure that we come to the market with a reusable launcher relatively fast," ESA director Josef Aschbacher told AFP in October. Several European aerospace firms are now bidding to develop the system for the ESA.

Data released Friday by Portugal's National Institute of Statistics (INE) shows 79 percent of residents currently use social media, the lowest level since 2017. Researchers cited by the Portuguese newspaper Expresso say the trend is consistent with developments observed in other countries, pointing to signs of saturation as users reassess the role of social media in their daily lives. Increasingly, individuals are adopting "digital detox" practices, including limiting screen time or temporarily disconnecting from online platforms.

Experts note that the decline among young people reflects a conscious effort to establish healthier digital habits. Patricia Dias, assistant professor at the Faculty of Human Sciences of the Catholic University of Portugal (UCP), said that reducing social media use is often a deliberate and sustained decision rather than a short-term reaction. Drawing on her research into digital disconnection among Portuguese adolescents, Dias said many young people choose to cut back because they perceive that the benefits of social media no longer outweigh the time commitment and psychological pressure involved.

She explained that young users frequently report experiencing anxiety, compulsive checking behaviors and social pressure, particularly the fear of missing out. These factors encourage them to set boundaries on their online activity, reduce usage or temporarily disconnect altogether. Dias emphasized that such behavior represents a process of self-regulation. "What we are observing is an increasing awareness among young people of the need to protect their attention and well-being, and to develop more balanced and sustainable patterns of online engagement," she said.

Despite the decline, social media continues to play a significant role in Portuguese society. Analysts note that the current trend does not signal the disappearance of social platforms, but rather a shift toward more selective and intentional use.

He added the cables -- providing connectivity to northern and southern parts of Papua New Guinea, as well as the autonomous region of Bougainville -- will lay the foundation for the country to become a "regional digital anchor". Tsiamalili said he met with Australian and US diplomats this week to discuss the project at Google's Sydney office and the company's "role as a partner for the submarine cable rollout". The laying and operation of undersea cables was long the preserve of large telecoms operators, but internet giants have largely taken over in recent years as they strive to keep up with ballooning flows of data.

About 1.4 million kilometres (nearly 900,000 miles) of fibre-optic cables are laid on the ocean floor, enabling the provision of essential services such as trade, financial transactions and public services around the world. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told the national broadcaster ABC the cables would lower internet prices, increase economic growth and education opportunities. The project is part of a wider mutual defence treaty both countries signed this year, Tsiamalili said.

The deal -- known as the Pukpuk treaty -- commits both countries to defending each other from armed attacks as they face "emerging threats" to their security and enables the nations' citizens to serve in each other's militaries. It also ensures that "any activities, agreements or arrangements with third parties would not compromise the ability of either of the Parties to implement the Treaty" -- a nod to China's growing influence in the Pacific.

Canberra has stepped up its engagement with the Pacific region in a bid to counter Beijing's influence. To the north of Australia, Papua New Guinea is the largest and most populous state in Melanesia. China has committed billions of dollars to Pacific nations over the past decade, funding hospitals, sports stadiums, roads and other public works in an attempt to win their favour.

It is an approach that appears to be paying dividends. Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Nauru have all severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of China in recent years. Google have not responded to a request for comment.

At its most basic, a data center is a concrete warehouse filled with thousands of computer servers working in tandem. Traditional facilities span one or two floors divided into vast rooms, though newer ones rise higher. A facility may serve a single company or be shared by several clients. The servers sit in standardized 19-inch (48 cm) racks -- essentially metal closets lined up in rows. A large data center can house tens of thousands of servers running simultaneously, generating enormous heat and consuming significant energy for both power and cooling. High-speed networking equipment -- switches, routers, and fiber optic cables -- connects everything, moving terabytes of data per second.

Having a data center close to end users improves speed, which is critical for things like trading and gaming where immediacy is paramount. Ashburn, Virginia, which has the highest concentration of data centers in the world, offers ideal conditions as it is located only about 30 miles from the US capital, Washington. However, building in densely populated areas costs more and faces local resistance. Companies increasingly turn to rural locations where land is cheaper and zoning less restrictive.

But distance adds to loading times -- that brief delay when a page loads or a feed refreshes. To balance cost and performance, operators typically house core infrastructure -- or the training of AI models -- in affordable rural regions while keeping equipment that handles time-sensitive requests closer to urban centers. Inside these bunker-like buildings, a single server rack generates as much heat as several household ovens running nonstop. Cooling consumes roughly 40 percent of a data center's total energy.

The most advanced chips -- GPUs (graphics processing units) used for AI -- can reach temperatures exceeding 90øC, threatening performance and causing permanent damage during extended operation. They are also much heavier than lower performing chips. Traditional facilities use computer room air conditioners with heat blasting out of mounted vents on on rooftops - but this is not fit for GPUs that mainly turn to water for cooling. Modern facilities are beginning to deploy "free cooling" that uses outside air when temperatures allow, and different water-based approaches: liquid cooling systems that pump coolant directly to components or evaporative cooling that works like perspiration on skin.

Today massive amounts of water are still required for direct and indirect cooling in data centers. In 2014, US data centers used 21.2 billion liters of water, and that number rose to 66 billion liters in 2023, according to federal estimates. Power supply -- and the high voltage transmission lines needed to source it -- is key for a data center and is only growing with facilities that run the powerful GPUs.

"One of the biggest challenges for a lot of our customers is they buy the chips and then they don't know where to go," Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer at Digital Realty, which operates data centers around the world, told AFP. The big tech giants, caught up in the AI arms race, have spent tens of billions of dollars in just months towards building suitable structures for GPUs. Operators rely on the existing power grid but are increasingly seeking to secure their own resources -- called "behind-the-meter" -- for greater security and to limit rate increases for all users.

Solar panels or gas turbines are sometimes installed, and many are also awaiting the arrival of the first small modular reactors (SMRs), a nuclear energy technology currently under development. Most data centers have to run 24/7 and every critical system has backups in case of power outages. This can come through massive battery banks or diesel generators. The best facilities guarantee power 99.995 percent of the time.

Then came the advent of the internet and an influx of data center builders. They emerged with pledges of tax revenue and investment in return for building structures that, while not pleasing to the eye, were the backbone of a digitally connected world. Why here? A combination of strategic location, robust infrastructure, pro-business policies, and affordable energy helps explain it. The Pentagon and the US government are just down the road, as were the headquarters of AOL, the early web giant that once defined being online.

The benefits to Ashburn from these anonymous buildings over the past two decades are undeniable. Woven through the expanse of data centers are new stores, residential neighborhoods, an ice skating rink and public facilities that prove this town is in no way short of money. Ashburn is in Loudoun County, the richest county per capita in the United States, with towns the world over looking at the Washington suburb as a way to win the future -- even if others see it as a cautionary tale.

Among its 40,000 citizens, Ashburn alone has 152 data centers currently in operation over its 40 square kilometers (15.4 square miles), with more bursting from the ground, part of an AI investment boom creating a race for ever more massive structures. In 2025, private companies are spending roughly $40 billion a month on data center construction in the United States, according to the US Census Bureau, much of that for megaprojects by the major AI players: Google, Amazon, Microsoft and OpenAI. This compares to just $1.8 billion a decade ago. AFP reporters were given a tour of a typical data center facility by Digital Realty, a specialized real estate company that operates 13 data centers in Ashburn.

"We provide not only the space that you see here, but the power, the cooling and the connectivity," said Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer at Digital Realty. The servers in any given data center give life to basically anything we do online. Computer rooms here -- which are strictly off limits to outsiders -- are filled with racks of servers for a single client or broken into separate "cages" serving smaller clients.

The emergence of AI has catapulted the industry to another dimension, creating new challenges as tech giants, caught in a bitter AI rivalry, scour the globe to build AI-capable data centers quickly. These new generation buildings require unprecedented levels of power, cooling technology and engineering: servers running Nvidia's graphics processing units, necessary for training AI, are incredibly heavy, requiring bigger and sturdier structures that need massive amounts of electricity. "If we think about Virginia alone, just the data centers last year used about as much electricity as all of New York City," said Leslie Abrahams, deputy director of the Energy Security and Climate Change program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Data servers deploying ChatGPT-like technologies run very hot and require new-generation liquid cooling-air conditioning will no longer do the job-and in most cases this means access to local water. Not surprisingly, the new necessities have made new constructions a harder sell. "Growing up, we started to see a few data centers, but honestly, not at this accelerated pace -- they're just popping up everywhere," said Makaela Edmonds, a 24-year-old who grew up in Ashburn. Her family's home is part of a suburban development that abuts a massive construction site.

Another issue is that jobs in data centers are mostly found at the construction phase. Teams in hard hats work the sites, often around the clock. But once operational, many sites betray very little human activity. "The benefits of data centers tend to be more regional, national and global than local," Abrahams said. - 'Monumental growth' - In a major shift, local politicians in northern Virginia are now running campaigns to slow the expansion instead of promising to attract more construction.

For companies like Digital Realty, the challenge is to work with communities to prepare them for what bringing in data centers entails. Despite any doubts, the demand is not abating. "The growth and demand in this market is monumental," said Sharp. 

"Thousands of everyday household essentials and fresh grocery items can now arrive at customers' doorsteps in minutes," Amazon said in an online post. Delivery fees start at $3.99 for Amazon Prime members and $13.99 for shoppers who do not subscribe to the service.

"We are thankful for the role John played in building and advancing our AI work," Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in a post announcing the news. Researcher Amar Subramanya has joined Apple as a vice president and will lead in "critical areas," including AI foundation models and machine learning, according to the company. Subramanya was most recently a corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft, prior to that spending 16 years at Google where he was head of engineering for the Gemini digital assistant before leaving, Apple said.

Apple cited Subramanya's experience integrating AI into features and products as "important to Apple's ongoing innovation and future Apple Intelligence features." Giannandrea joined Apple in 2018, heading the company's AI efforts. Apple early this year delayed the release of an improved Siri digital assistant and is now promising it for next year. Meanwhile, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and other tech rivals have been releasing ever-improved AI models and features in a fierce race to lead in the technology.

Apple has been under pressure to show it is not being left behind when it comes to artificial intelligence, with the potential to change how people engage with the internet and computers. Cook cited AI as "central to Apple's strategy" and said Subramanya will bring "extraordinary AI expertise" to his role reporting to senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi. "Craig has been instrumental in driving our AI efforts, including overseeing our work to bring a more personalized Siri to users next year," Cook said.

On a recent earnings call, Cook touted the latest Apple devices and the tech giant's custom chips and efforts to enhance products and services with artificial intelligence.

Growth has been patchy in the competitive smartphone market, pushing makers to find new, eye-catching ways to differentiate their products. Offered solely in a black design, Samsung's new device comes in at 309 grams (10.9 ounces) and at its thinnest point measures less than 0.2 inches. Generative artificial intelligence features are integrated into the phone, which can give real-time help through screen or camera sharing. Samsung admitted the Galaxy Z TriFold was "not intended for mass sales".

Alex Lim, executive vice president at Samsung Electronics said it was a "special edition" product. The launch comes as recent industry numbers suggest Apple is on track to overtake Samsung for the first time in 14 years as the world's top smartphone maker through 2029. Apple has also long been rumored to be planning a foldable iPhone, possibly as early as next year.

The US company's smartphone shipments are expected to reach a global share of 19.4 percent in 2025 while Samsung is expected to hold 18.7 percent -- with Apple effectively dethroning its rival for the first time, according to research firm Counterpoint.

IGCF Chairman Mahmudur Rahman and Executive Director Shama Obaideh were also present at the inaugural ceremony. Forty students from various public and private universities participated in the workshop, which was organized under IGCF's Youth Skill Development Program. The foundation began its journey this year with the aim of empowering youth and developing them into world-class citizens through innovative, research-based initiatives. IGCF member Imamul Haque Shamim delivered the welcome address.

Trainer Abdullah Al Mamun said the Gen Z youth who led the July Uprising would drive the future AI revolution in Bangladesh. By gaining expertise in artificial intelligence, he added, young people will play a crucial role in shaping the country's future. Abu Saleh Mohammad Yusuf, IGCF member and Research Director at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, warned that without adequate skills in AI, Bangladesh risks falling behind the rest of the world in the next decade.

And on Thursday Chinese official Li Chao told a National Development and Reform Commission briefing on Thursday: "'Speed' and 'bubble' have always been issues that need grasping and balance in the development of frontier industries." She added that "the same goes for the humanoid robot industry", in answer to a question about the bubble concerns. It mirrors wider fears of a market crash fuelled by frenzied investment in artificial intelligence technology worldwide.

"In recent years, driven by innovation and increased demand, humanoid robotics representing the scale of the embodied intelligence industry is seeing explosive growth," Li said Thursday. But the sector is not yet mature in terms of technology, commercialisation or use, she cautioned. More than half of China's 150 humanoid robot companies -- a figure still increasing -- are "startups or 'cross-industry' entrants, which is a good thing for innovation", Li said.

"But we must also be vigilant in preventing products that are highly repetitive from 'gathering' in the market, squeezing research and development space and other risks." An April report published by Leaderobot, a specialist consulting firm, predicted that China's humanoid robotics industry would reach 82 billion yuan ($11.6 billion) in 2025, accounting for half of global sales. Large-scale real-life use cases remain elusive, but ambitious trials have grabbed headlines.

A robot made by Shanghai's AgiBot set a Guinness World Record this month for the longest reported distance ever walked by a humanoid machine, having completed a three-day, 100-kilometre (62-mile) trek. Beijing also hosted the world's first-ever humanoid robot games in August, where more than 500 "athletes" vied in disciplines ranging from basketball to competitive cleaning. 

These are far from the thundering, kilometre-long lightning bolts we see on Earth. Instead, they are "little zaps" similar to "what you might feel in dry weather when you touch your car door and there's a bit of static electricity," lead author Baptiste Chide of France's CNRS research centre told AFP. While low in energy, these discharges are happening "absolutely all the time -- and everywhere" on Mars, the planetary scientist said.

The process starts when tiny grains of dust rub against each other. They become charged with electrons and release this energy in electrical arcs a few centimetres (inches) -- or even millimetres -- long, sending off an audible shock wave. Here on Earth, dust storms and dust devils in desert areas also create electrical fields. But they rarely build up into electrical discharges. However on Mars, "because of the very low pressure and the composition of the atmosphere, the amount of charge that needs to accumulate to generate a discharge is much smaller," Chide explained.

This phenomenon has been theorised since Mars first started to be explored -- and has been reproduced in the laboratory. Chide said it had been "such an important issue for Martian science" that an instrument on the European Space Agency's Schiaparelli lander was dedicated to searching for it. Unfortunately the spacecraft crashed while trying to land on Mars in 2016. Since then, "it was somewhat of a forgotten area for Martian exploration," Chide said.

That is, until "by chance" the microphone on Perserverance's SuperCam recorded signals of what appeared to be electrical discharges, he added. Daniel Mitchard, a lightning expert at Cardiff University not involved in the study, commented in Nature that the research provided "persuasive evidence of dust-induced discharges". But because the discharges "were only heard and not seen," he expected debate between scientists on the subject "to continue for some time". The research could shed some light on the mysterious Martian climate.

"Dust drives the Martian climate", similar to the water cycle on Earth, Chide said. For example, a season of dust storms will have begun by the end of the year. The electrical discharges could also kick off a process that destroys organic molecules -- which are the building blocks of life -- on the Martian surface. It could also explain the surprisingly rapid disappearance of methane on the planet -- a phenomenon that has baffled scientists.

It may also have implications for future Mars missions. Scientists will now be able to design their instruments to better protect the future robots sent to Mars, Chide said. And of course, there are also plans for humans to finally step foot on the planet's red surface. "In the long term, isn't there a risk that the suits of the astronauts who stay on the Martian surface for a long time will be damaged by these discharges?" Chide asked. "We will have to ask ourselves this question."

The accord, negotiated by President Donald Trump's Justice Department, must be approved by a federal judge. The case dates back to a US suit filed in August 2024 by former president Joe Biden's DOJ that had accused the RealPage of utilizing artificial intelligence-powered algorithms to enable landlords to lift rent prices by sharing real-time pricing inputs and other sensitive non-public data from competing landlords. The venture resulted in allegedly higher rents in a scheme then-Attorney General Merrick Garland described as "classic price fixing."

DOJ officials described the case as the first time US prosecutors have targeted anticompetitive behavior centered on computer algorithms. Under Monday's settlement unveiled by Trump appointee Abigail Slater, the inputs would be limited to "historic or backward-looking nonpublic data" at least 12 months old, the DOJ press release said. "Competing companies must make independent pricing decisions, and with the rise of algorithmic and artificial intelligence tools, we will remain at the forefront of vigorous antitrust enforcement," Slater said.

Another provision restricts the use of data for areas narrower than at the state level, which is broader than the market-level data cited in the original complaint. RealPage, which is based in Texas and backed by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, emphasized in a statement that the accord includes no findings or admissions of liability and no financial penalties

The settlement overall "essentially commits RealPage to the modifications to its revenue management solutions that it already has been implementing since over a year ago," the company said.

Shenzhou-22 was originally slated for a crewed launch in 2026. But it was launched early after a suspected space debris strike to the Shenzhou-20 return capsule made it unsafe for re-entry to Earth, leaving its crew briefly stranded. The Shenzhou-20 team returned aboard Shenzhou-21 on November 14 -- nine days later than planned -- leaving their relief crew without a reliable return vehicle. The accelerated launch ensures Shenzhou-21 astronauts Zhang Lu, Wu Fei, and Zhang Hongzhang have a safe return option.

The three were "working normally and in good condition", the China Manned Space Agency said Monday before the Shenzhou-22 launch. China is the third nation to put humans in orbit after the United States and the former Soviet Union. It has been excluded from the International Space Station since 2011, when the United States banned NASA from collaborating with Beijing. It has since sought to bring other countries into its efforts and signed a deal with Pakistan in February to recruit the first foreign "taikonauts" -- a term used for astronauts in China's space programme.

Users will be able to do so using an Australian bank account, government-issued identification, or by taking a photo of their face which a third party will then use to provide an estimated age range. From December 10, users under 16 will have their accounts locked. Snapchat, like other social media platforms, has advised teen users to download their data as soon as possible as it may be tricky to do so once the ban starts.

The messaging app said it strongly disagreed with being included in the government's ban but "we will comply, as we do with all local laws in countries in which we operate". "However, disconnecting teens from their friends and family doesn't make them safer -- it may push them to less safe, less private messaging apps," it warned. So far, 10 platforms including Discord, WhatsApp, Lego Play and Pinterest have avoided being included in the landmark legislation.

But Australian authorities have reserved the right to update the list of banned platforms as required. There is keen interest in whether Australia's sweeping restrictions can work as regulators around the globe wrestle with the dangers of social media. New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will introduce a similar bill to restrict children's social media use.

And the Dutch government advised parents this year to forbid children under 15 from using social media apps such as TikTok and Snapchat. On paper, the ban is one of the strictest in the world. But some experts are concerned that the law will be merely symbolic because of the difficulty in implementing and policing online age verification.

Video clips published by AgiBot showed the silver-and-black A2 trudging along a road past cyclists and scooters, before picking up its pace and marching down the Bund in front of the Shanghai skyline. The world's tech firms are pouring massive sums into physical AI, with Morgan Stanley predicting that the world could have more than a billion humanoid robots by 2050. The Chinese government has encouraged domestic firms to develop humanoids, in the hopes of leading the global robotics industry.

Beijing hosted the world's first-ever humanoid robot games in August, where more than 500 "athletes" vied in disciplines ranging from basketball to competitive cleaning. AgiBot says the A2 is designed for customer service roles, and is equipped with a chat function and lip-reading capabilities.

In September, a judge rejected a similar Department of Justice demand to break up the California-based tech giant's world-dominating search engine business. These cases are part of a broader US government effort to curtail the competitive dominance of big tech companies, including Apple, Amazon and Meta. Results have been mixed so far -- another judge decided against government lawyers in a suit against Meta's social media empire earlier this week. In a brief filed ahead of Friday's arguments, the DOJ and multiple US states accused Google of illegally acquiring monopolies in two interconnected advertising technology markets through a "decade-long campaign of ever-mutating unlawful conduct."

The government's case portrays Google as simultaneously controlling multiple sides of the digital advertising marketplace -- owning the platform that publishers use to sell ads, the exchange where transactions occur, and commanding huge advertiser demand. According to the DOJ, Google once compared this arrangement to Goldman Sachs owning the New York Stock Exchange.

"We are here to fix the problem. We will argue that the best solution is to break up Google's monopoly, which will create a new competitor," Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater said in a post on X. Google has pushed back, characterizing the proposed remedies as extreme government overreach that would harm publishers, advertisers and consumers. The company argues its integrated advertising tools deliver efficiency and innovation and that splitting up the service would be technically unfeasible.

The closing arguments follow a liability ruling earlier this year in which Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema found that Google willfully monopolized both the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets. Prosecutors are seeking sweeping remedies, including forcing the sale of Google's AdX ad exchange and requiring the company to open-source critical auction technology. According to Laurel Kilgour of the American Economic Liberties Project, Brinkema expressed worry that her remedy decision risked having to be undone, with Google almost certain to appeal, potentially dragging out the process for years.

The closing arguments capped a remedies trial featuring testimony from 19 witnesses and seven experts over 11 days. The judge in the search case cited the emergence of AI as a reason for treading lightly against Google. In the ad tech case, DOJ lawyers argue the opposite -- that artificial intelligence advances will likely entrench rather than challenge Google's dominance. A final ruling is expected in the coming months.

The platform includes "features designed to encourage user interaction, including through livestreaming content", the regulator said. Lifestyle website Pinterest, LegoPlay and WhatsApp will not be banned, but other platforms remain under review. AFP has reached out to Twitch for comment. Twitch says that nearly 70 percent of viewers are aged between 18 and 34, but does not disclose how many are younger. It does not allow any users under the age of 13.

Australian authorities have reserved the right to force all platforms to comply with the legislation. Tech companies have been critical of Australia's ban, describing it as "vague", "problematic" and "rushed". There is keen interest in whether the sweeping restrictions can work as regulators around the globe wrestle with the potential dangers of social media. New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will introduce a similar bill to restrict children's social media use.

And the Dutch government advised parents this year to forbid children under 15 from using social media apps like TikTok and Snapchat. Social media companies caught flouting the laws will face fines of up to $32 million. On paper, Australia's ban is one of the strictest in the world. But some experts are concerned that the law will be merely symbolic because of the difficulty in implementing and policing online age verification.

Blue Origin's accomplishment comes amid intensified rivalry between the two billionaire-owned private space companies, as the US space agency NASA recently opened up bids for its planned Moon mission. "Damn that was exciting!" said Jared Isaacman -- a Musk ally who President Donald Trump recently nominated again to head NASA -- on X, congratulating Blue Origin. A handful of figures at SpaceX also had praise for their rivals, including Musk himself: "Congratulations @JeffBezos and the @BlueOrigin team!" he said on X.

The launch was repeatedly delayed, on Sunday over weather on Earth, and on Wednesday over weather in space. The second postponement was over "highly elevated solar activity" that NASA was worried could impact or damage its spacecraft. And multiple glitches meant delays yet again on Thursday -- hold-ups Blue Origin did not explain. But at 3:55 pm (2055 GMT), New Glenn finally blasted off.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket now has the task of sending NASA's ESCAPADE twin spacecraft to Mars, in a bid to study the Red Planet's climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration. Applause resounded once more as the spacecraft successfully deployed. Joseph Westlake, a NASA heliophysicist, explained during Thursday's webcast how the twin spacecraft named "Blue" and "Gold" will first finding a "benign, safe parking orbit" to make "measurements about the space weather here on Earth."

Then, once the planets have reached the ideal alignment in the fall of 2026, the spacecraft will get a boost from Earth's gravity and begin the journey to Mars, where they will arrive in 2027. This type of launch could allow for more frequent missions in the future, because they could proceed outside the window of direct alignment of Earth and Mars that happens approximately once every two years. New Glenn's inaugural flight in January also was marked a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.

But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, was lost during descent. Thursday's achievement signals that Blue Origin is on its way to reducing costs by reusing boosters rather than allowing them to plummet into the ocean. "Launch, land, repeat -- it starts today," said Eddie Seyffert, among Blue Origin's webcast commentators.

And it comes as US President Donald Trump's second term in the White House has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China. George Nield -- a senior aerospace executive whose work promotes the commercial space industry, and who has flown with Blue Origin in the past -- told AFP this launch would be an "indicator" of the company's progress. It could show "whether they can play increased roles in near-term lunar exploration," he said.

However, because of the debris strike their return was delayed, and the three astronauts will come back aboard the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft instead, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement. It successfully separated from the space station at 11:14 am (0314 GMT) on Friday, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The astronauts Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie are "all in good condition", CMSA said.

The Dongfeng landing site in northern Inner Mongolia is "making intensive preparations to welcome them home", it added. The damaged Shenzhou-20 spacecraft will remain in orbit "to conduct relevant experiments", CCTV said. Its window glass has "developed a minor crack", thought to be from the debris strike.

Billions of dollars have been poured into China's space programme in a bid to catch up with the United States and Russia. Beijing has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually to build a base on the lunar surface. CMSA said the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft will be launched at a later date, without giving any details.     

"Our proposal fully addresses the decision without a disruptive break-up that would harm the thousands of European publishers and advertisers who use Google tools to grow their business," a Google spokesperson said. Despite agreeing to the adtech changes, Google said it still disagreed with the EU decision. Brussels will now assess the commitments -- which come as the bloc treads a line between its determination to enforce its tech rules and its wariness of further provoking Trump. The EU has set its sights on Google.

Only a day before Google's announcement, the commission launched a new probe into the US company under its digital competition rules over suspicions it is unfairly pushing down certain news outlets in search rankings. Google also faces scrutiny over its advertising services in the United States. A US federal judge earlier this year decided against Google over its adtech practices. Google is also seeking to avoid a forced sale in that case in Virginia, and closing arguments are expected to take place on Monday. The judge is set to make a decision in the following weeks or months.

When it announced the September fine, the commission said Google had unfairly used its dominant position in online advertising to favour its own services. The online giant not only sells advertising on its own websites and apps, but also acts as an intermediary for firms wanting to place ads elsewhere to appear on mobile and computer screens -- which Brussels says made it harder for rivals to compete. Google on Friday said its plan included immediate product changes such as giving publishers the option to set varying minimum prices for different bidders when using Google Ad Manager.

And to address the EU's accusations of conflict of interest, Google said it would increase the interoperability of its tools for publishers and advisers. The European Commission confirmed Google had sent its plan. "We will now analyse Google's proposed measures to assess whether they effectively bring the self-preferencing practices to an end and address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest," a commission spokesperson said. Brussels has slapped multiple fines on Google in recent years.

It fined the giant 4.1 billion euros in 2018 for abusing the market dominance of its Android operating system, and in 2017 slapped a 2.4-billion-euro fine for anti-competitive practices in the price comparison market. The EU also accused Google in March of treating its own services more favourably compared to rivals as part of a digital competition probe launched last year.  

In Bangladesh, salt and Artemia have always been produced separately. The new system will now allow coastal farmers to raise Artemia while producing salt, reducing import dependency and increasing income opportunities. According to the researchers, Artemia can be cultured directly in coastal salt pans using a combined agro-aquaculture method. The approach enables farmers to produce Artemia biomass, cysts, flakes, and high-quality salt at the same time. 

As Artemia consume dissolved organic matter, the water used in the cultivation process becomes cleaner, resulting in purer salt than that typically produced in the country. The research team has recently completed a research project on this method and published a handbook titled "Commercialization of Artemia Biomass and Cyst Produced in Saltpans for Livelihood Security of Coastal Community, Bangladesh." 

The project was supervised by Professor Dr. M. Shafiqul Islam. The research team included Prof Aysha Akhtar, Associate Prof Md. Mostafa Monwar, Assistant Prof Mohammad Nesarul Hoque, Mitu Ranjan Sarker and researcher Alam Parvez.  Funded by the Department of Fisheries under the Sustainable Coastal and Marine Fisheries Project (SCMFP), the study began in June 2024 and completed field operations in July 2025. 

Ten students of the department also worked as research assistants: Md. Nafiz Mahmud, Esha Salbeen, Maruf Ahmed, Shahriya Jahan Tisha, Nahil Sarkar, Tasnim Akhtar, Riku Rani Devi, Mercy Meenakshi Mrong, Omar Hasnat Siddiq Tanmoy and Homaira Akhtar. The manual outlines the basics of Artemia, the advantages of integrated production, steps for field preparation, feeding, biomass and cyst collection, salt extraction, flake processing, and marketing. The researchers believe that once the system is adopted on a wider scale, Bangladesh will advance in sustainable aquaculture, save foreign currency and strengthen its Blue Economy ambitions. They say the method can raise coastal incomes by offering alternative year-round production options.

Researcher Alam Parvez said fish and shrimp hatcheries rely heavily on Artemia, all of which is imported. Locally grown Artemia can be used live for hatcheries, while adult biomass can be turned into flakes for storage.  He said affordable sheds can be set up in salt fields to produce biomass, cysts, and salt throughout the year at low cost. Prof Aysha Akhtar said the project aimed to produce Artemia biomass and cysts and prepare flakes suitable for hatchery use. 

She said integrated production will help increase farmers' incomes and improve salt quality. "If these are utilized effectively, imports will fall, foreign exchange will be saved, employment will rise, and farmers' livelihoods will improve," she added. Project lead Dr. Shafiqul Islam said the team trained salt farmers directly in the field on how to cultivate Artemia and salt together. They also demonstrated harvesting, storing, and processing techniques.  "If this method can be expanded along Bangladesh's nearly 700-kilometre coastline, it will make a significant contribution to our national Blue Economy goals," he said.

Looking ahead, he said the next step is to engage government agencies and private investors.  With proper incentives and local capacity-building, Bangladesh could develop a promising Artemia-based industry similar to those in South and Central Asia. "We are ready to assist anyone interested in research or commercial ventures," he added.

In fact, a particularly powerful solar storm caused auroras as far south as the US city of Tennessee on Wednesday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Auroras were also visible in the skies above New Zealand, AFP images showed, with more expected into Wednesday night. However, observing such a storm on a distant star had proven difficult for astronomers. New research, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, revealed that an international team of researchers has finally achieved the feat.

The discovery used data from a European network of telescopes called LOFAR. The team of astronomers has been using LOFAR since 2016 to detect the most extreme and violent events in the universe -- such as black holes -- which emit relatively stable radio signals over time. "We always have stars in the telescope's field of view but generally we're not interested in them," Cyril Tasse, a Paris Observatory astronomer and the study's co-author, told AFP. However, the researchers have set up a data processing system that also records what is going on with the stars behind the behemoths they are chasing.

In 2022, the team decided to find out "what had been caught in this net", Tasse said. They found that there was a huge explosion which only lasted a minute on May 16, 2016. It came from a red dwarf star called StKM 1-1262 more than 133 light years away. The team then determined it was a coronal mass ejection -- a stellar storm. "It's the first time we have detected one" on a star other than our own, Tasse said.

But this coronal mass ejection was "at least 10,000 times more violent than known solar storms" on the Sun, he added. The discovery could have an impact on the search for planets beyond our solar system that have the potential to host life. Red dwarfs, which have a mass of between 10 and 50 percent that of our Sun, have proven to be the most likely stars in the universe to host planets that are roughly the size of Earth.

"The first radio detection inaugurates a new era for space weather applied to other star systems," said Philippe Zarka, research director at the Paris Observatory and a study co-author. "This emerging field opens up major perspectives for how the magnetic activity of stars influence the habitability of the planets that surround them." Tasse said that it appears that red dwarf stars have "much more erratic and violent" behaviour than the Sun. "The implication is that these stars can be rather inhospitable when it comes to life and exoplanets," because they have storms so powerful they could destroy the atmospheres of planets nearby, he added.

At the inauguration ceremony held on Sunday (November 9), the entrepreneurs announced that this will be the most advanced IT business complex in Bangladesh. The building offers ready-to-move-in shops and office spaces available under a sub-kabla (land ownership) system — purchasable at the cost of rent. Entrepreneurs will also have access to bank loans and easy installment payment options, creating opportunities for young tech startups to launch with ease.

Dhaka Computer City features state-of-the-art fire safety systems, smart building management, ample parking, backup generators, high-speed elevators, 24-hour security, and high-speed internet access. The entire building is equipped with CCTV surveillance, fire alarms, and smart access control systems.

Designed as a one-stop destination for IT distributors, resellers, e-commerce businesses, mobile and hardware companies, the project will host a diverse range of tech-related enterprises. It will include dedicated areas for hardware, software, servers, robotics, CCTV, and IoT products, offering integrated exhibition and retail spaces.

Speaking at the event, Nazrul Islam Hazarie, Director of the Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS), owner of Welkin Computers, and one of the key initiators of the project, said:

“We are creating a permanent and long-term solution for IT entrepreneurs. Back in 2006, we established BCS Computer City at Multiplan Center — now Dhaka Computer City is the next step of that success story. Here, business owners will have the opportunity to own their spaces, supported by bank loans and installment facilities.”

Monirul Islam, Secretary of the Bangladesh Computer Samity, described the project as:

“Not just a building, but a major infrastructural investment for the nation’s digital economy. Dhaka Computer City will provide a secure and sustainable workspace for tech entrepreneurs and help foster future innovation and startups.”

Md. Mujahid Al Beruni Sujon, Director of Smart Technology BD Ltd., said:

“This is not only a place but a visionary platform built by like-minded entrepreneurs and investors. It will succeed because people still prefer to shop physically in tech markets.”

Kamal Hossain Selim, Director of Dhaka Computer City and Chairman of Techno Group, added:

“Dhaka Computer City is the new-generation IT hub. Our goal is to build a permanent center in the capital where technology entrepreneurs can work together in a modern, secure, and tech-driven environment. This will further accelerate the growth of the country’s technology sector.”

Other speakers included Abdullah Al Mamun, DMD of Al-Arafah Islami Bank; Samir Kumar Das, Head of Distribution, Global Brand Pvt. Ltd.; Nasir, Treasurer of ECS; Shamim Ahsan, Executive Director of Bhuiya Group; Noman Sikder, Head of Marvelous Computers; Shariful Islam Sohel, Secretary of Elephant Road Computer Association; Iqbal Hossain, Secretary of Elephant Road Computer Association; Faruk Ahmed Bhuiya; Abul Hasan, Treasurer of BCS; and Mostafizur Rahman Tuhin, former President of Elephant Computer Association, among others.

Leaders and representatives from Mirpur, Motijheel, and Uttara Computer Associations were also present at the ceremony.

The return of the spacecraft and the three astronauts, planned for Wednesday, has been postponed to ensure their safety, the statement said. Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie had been expected to touch down at the Dongfeng landing site in northern Inner Mongolia. The CMSA did not give a new date for their return. A relief crew arrived at the Tiangong space station aboard the Shenzhou-21 last week. The Tiangong is crewed by teams of three astronauts that are exchanged every six months.

It is the crown jewel of China's space programme, into which billions of dollars have been poured in a bid to catch up with the United States and Russia. Members of both crews were pictured eating "barbecued" chicken wings aboard the station in a video shared by Chinese state media this week. China has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually to build a base on the lunar surface.

The fields at this year's competition included robot battles, programming, artificial intelligence, as well as drones, cybersecurity and connected devices. A few hours before his event, Alireza Hosseini put the final touches on combat robot Arash -- a rudimentary machine of wires and wheels without the appearance of a humanoid. "What's more important than the design is the operator," the 21-year-old university student told AFP, referring to the person who remotely controls the robot.

"The design only represents a third of the work, but the operator decides how and where the robot attacks," said Hosseini, from Kerman in southern Iran. Hosseini said his team of students in electrical engineering, electronics, computer science, mechanical engineering and design had been crowned Iran's robotics champion three times. Launched last year at the government's initiative, the Tech Olympics serve as a talent pool for companies seeking potential recruits.

The coach of one team of under-18s appeared somewhat anxious before the start of the competition. "Unfortunately, we started late, and the robot isn't quite ready yet," said Mr. Azizi, who did not give his first name. Three referees were tasked with judging the robot fights, just like in wrestling, a sport at which Iran excels. The collisions between machines produce sparks, and sometimes even balls of fire. Victory goes to the robot that disables its opponent.

The Tech Olympics take place on the outskirts of the capital Tehran, at the Pardis Technology Park -- nicknamed Iran's Silicon Valley -- where dozens of cutting-edge companies are located. The organisers boast that they received more than 10,000 applications for the competition, which was whittled down to 1,000 spots in the elimination rounds. A few foreign teams also participated. Iranian media mentioned more than a dozen countries ranging from neighbouring Iraq to far-away Romania.

Iran has invested sizable sums in emerging technologies, including robotics, with dozens of companies using them for a variety of applications. In September, the country unveiled its first AI-powered robot, capable of accurately answering a wide range of legal questions, according to local media. The military has also harnessed these technologies, including for its Aria combat robot, which uses AI to detect obstacles and move autonomously and was unveiled in September.

In 2021, veterinarians in Iran performed the first-ever remote surgery on a dog using Sina, a surgical robot entirely designed and manufactured domestically. The Tech Olympics aims to prepare students for real-world situations. Mohammad-Javad Asadolahi, a 21-year-old studying mechanical engineering at university, said he and his classmates designed a drone -- capable of taking off automatically and following a set trajectory -- from scratch using "60 to 70 percent Iranian technology". "Our main difficulty was the lack of educational resources" in English and Persian, he said. But "thanks to our knowledge and research, we have gradually succeeded".

Britain approved the Automated Vehicles Act last year to put a small number of driverless services on the roads on a trial basis, aiming to boost an emerging sector that lags behind the US and China. Ride-hailing firm Uber and UK-based start-up Wayve unveiled plans in June to launch driverless taxis in the UK next year. Chinese internet giant Baidu plans to launch a UK robotaxi service on rideshare app Lyft. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that boosting the autonomous vehicle sector will "increase accessible transport options alongside bringing jobs, investment and opportunities". Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover joined forces to develop the self-driving electric car used for its ride-hailing services in the US and Tokyo.

Addressing the event, he said the new services will significantly improve connectivity for both domestic and international travelers. The Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications, and Information Technology has announced that free Wi-Fi coverage will soon extend across the entire airport. Sylhet Deputy Commissioner Md Sarwar Alam was also present at the inauguration ceremony.

The Council approved the 'Telecommunications Network and Licensing Policy, 2025' along with 'Policy for Renewable Energy-Based Commercial Electricity Generation/Setting up of Power Plants with Private Participation, 2025' and the draft of the 'International Crimes (Tribunals) (Third Amendment) Ordinance, 2025'. Regarding concerns about Starlink's high subscription costs, Taiyeb clarified that pricing is determined by the private operator. 

"We do not negotiate commercially on their price structure. The Ministry of Finance has already approved a price plan proposed by Starlink," he said. He, however, said that discussions are ongoing about expanding Starlink's satellite internet service in remote regions. "We are particularly focusing on ensuring internet access for educational institutions in hard-to-reach areas like the Chittagong Hill Tracts," Taiyeb added.

"This underlines what we've been saying since this case was filed in 2020: Competition is intense and people can easily choose the services they want." Mulholland added that Google has "concerns" about how court-imposed requirements to share search data and limit distribution of services will affect user privacy. Judge Mehta's decision represents one of the most significant rulings against corporate monopoly practices in two decades and could fundamentally reshape the tech giant's future. The Justice Department called the remedies "significant." "We will continue to review the opinion to consider the Department's options and next steps regarding seeking additional relief," Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater said in a release. However, Tuesday's decision fell short of expectations from some observers who had anticipated more radical changes to Google.

"It sounds like the judge felt that it was too draconian to provide some of the remedies that prosecutors or the Department of Justice wanted," said professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond Law School. "Google is certainly not going to be broken up, and it's not clear that its business model is going to change a whole lot." The US government had pushed for Chrome's divestment, contending the browser serves as a crucial gateway to internet activity and facilitates a third of all Google web searches. But in his ruling, Mehta warned that a Chrome divestiture "would be incredibly messy and highly risky" and said US attorneys had overreached. The case focused on Google's expensive distribution agreements, paying billions for Apple, Samsung, and other smartphone manufacturers to establish Google as the default search engine on iPhones and other devices.

In his decision last year, Judge Mehta said Google's default status on the iPhone allowed the company to evolve into an internet powerhouse, insulated from competitive threats. But in a surprise move, Mehta on Tuesday said an outright ban of these deals was off the table, insisting that such a prohibition could have too profound an effect on other businesses. "Google will not be barred from making payments or offering other consideration to distribution partners for preloading or placement of Google Search, Chrome, or its GenAI products," the judge wrote. Minutes after the decision, shares in Google parent Alphabet rocketed by 7.5 percent in after-hours trading. Apple's stock rose by more than three percent.

"This is a monster win for [Apple] and for Google it's a home run ruling that removes a huge overhang on the stock," said Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities. Under the judge's order, Google must make available to "qualified competitors" search index data and user interaction information that rivals can use to improve their services. The ruling also specifically addresses the emerging threat from generative artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT, extending restrictions to prevent Google from using exclusive deals to dominate the AI space as it did with traditional search. A technical committee will oversee implementation of the remedies, which take effect 60 days after the judgment is entered. Google faces another legal case, awaiting a federal court decision in Virginia regarding its web display advertising technology business. A separate judge ruled earlier this year that Google's ad tech operations also constitute an illegal monopoly that stifles competition.

These cases are part of a broader government and bipartisan campaign against Big Tech. The US currently has five pending antitrust cases against major technology companies. The original search engine case against Google, along with a separate case targeting Meta, originated during the first Trump administration in 2020. The Biden administration maintained these prosecutions while launching additional cases against Apple and Amazon, as well as a second case challenging Google.

Details regarding the application process and the Request for Application (RFA) are available at the following link: https://bcc.gov.bd/site/notices/9bdaf881-a6e8-4ff5-aa9d-03b855a3fa04 (Alternatively, hard copies of the RFA may also be collected from the project office during official hours.) The application deadline has been extended, and interested candidates may now submit their CVs by September 7, 2025. Chief Adviser's Special Assistant on Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb posted it on his facebook page for the recruitment.  Position Details: (S-1): Senior Technical Specialist (Digital Security) - 10+ years of experiences, high proficiency in Cyber Security and Incident Response. Additionally, expertise in international cyber relations development, cyber security research, and cyber threat landscape analysis is required. (S-4): IT Auditor - 10+ years of experience, proficient in networking and audit processes.

(S-5): Information Security Specialist - 8+ years of experiences, skilled in VAPT and threat analysis. (S-7): Digital Forensic Analyst - 6+ years of experiences, proficient in digital forensics and malware analysis. (S-11): Public Relationship Officer - 3+ years of experiences, experience working in government projects. (S-12): Legal Officer - 3+ years of experiences, knowledgeable in cyber law and the constitution. (S-13): Application Security Manager (e-Services) - 5+ years of experiences, proficient in working with the Java Spring Framework. (S-14): Application Developer (e-Services) - 3-5 years of experiences, experience working with the NDA framework.(S-15): Quality Assurance (e-Services) - 3+ years of experiences, ISTQB certification is preferable. 

(S-17): Marketing and Business Specialist - 10+ years of experiences, proficient in analysis, budget planning, and stakeholder management. (S-20): CA Manager - 5+ years of experiences, experience working with PKI, Smart Card, and HSM is required. (S-21): Quality Assurance Manager (Number of Posts: 2) - 5+ years of experiences, expertise in IT QA, risk analysis, compliance, testing, and project management; ISTQB certified; knowledge in email security assurance and IT policy is required. Experience in IT quality assurance, IT policy development, risk analysis, compliance management, and testing work is also necessary. (S-22): Data Center (DC) Hardware Engineer - 3+ years of experiences, skilled in Linux/Unix administration, network troubleshooting (Cisco/Brocade/Huawei), and virtualization; any one of CCNA/CCNP/JNCIA certifications is mandatory. Experience in troubleshooting hardware and network architecture is required.

(S-23): Data Center (DC) Facility Engineer - 3+ years of experiences, experience in data center infrastructure. Knowledge of data center facility operation, mechanical-electrical-life safety systems; proficiency in MS Office and Visio; Certified Data Center Professionals (CDCP) is preferable. (S-25): Team Associates - Minimum 3 years of experience with a bachelor's degree in project management or related field, skilled in documentation, reporting, and coordination tasks, administrative and communication skills are required. Must be proficient in reading and writing and possess strong knowledge of ICT and computers. The last date for submission of applications is September 7, 2025, by 3:30pm.

Starship is central to Musk's ambition of colonizing Mars, while NASA is counting on a modified version to serve as the Artemis lunar lander for returning Americans to the Moon. But all three test flights so far in 2025 have ended in the upper stage exploding -- twice in fiery cascades over Caribbean islands and once after reaching space. In June, another upper stage exploded on the ground during a "static fire" test.

SpaceX's "fail fast, learn fast" ethos has long been credited with its remarkable track record, giving it a commanding global lead in launches thanks to its Falcon rocket family. But the Starship setbacks have raised doubts over whether the company can repeat that success with the biggest and most powerful rocket in history. Dallas Kasaboski, a space analyst for consulting firm Analysys Mason, told AFP that the recent failures were beginning to take the sheen off SpaceX's golden reputation.

"I think there is a lot of pressure on this mission," he said. "We've had so many tests and it hasn't proven itself reliable -- the successes have not exceeded the failures." Will Lockett, a former engineer turned commentator went further, arguing on his Substack newsletter that the lack of heavy payload tests showed "the concept of Starship is fundamentally flawed." He added: "SpaceX is building Starships that are lighter in an attempt to increase payload to usable levels but is therefore making them much weaker than they should be" -- leading to structural failures seen during recent tests.

Headlines such as "Is Elon Musk's Starship Doomed?" in New York Magazine have amplified the scrutiny. Musk has staked the company's future on Starship, planning to eventually retire its current generation of rockets and spacecraft in favor of the new system. Even if the tenth test succeeds, formidable technical hurdles remain -- from making the system fully and rapidly reusable at low cost to proving it can refuel super-cooled propellant in orbit, a prerequisite for deep-space missions.

Still, SpaceX is pressing ahead, increasing the frequency of launches despite criticism from environmental groups over ecological impacts, and building new facilities in Florida, including launch and landing pads at Kennedy Space Center.

The other $3.2 billion comes from an award to the company as part of the Secure Enclave program, Intel said. The $8.9 billion investment would be in addition to $2.2 billion in CHIPS grants Intel has already received, taking the full amount to $11.1 billion, the company added. "The United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL," Trump posted on Truth Social. He claimed that the country "paid nothing for these shares" after negotiations with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Intel noted in its statement: "The government's investment in Intel will be a passive ownership, with no board representation or other governance or information rights."

Referring to a meeting with Intel last week, Trump told reporters Friday: "I said, I think you should pay us 10 percent of your company." "I said, I think it would be good having the United States as your partner... they've agreed to do it, and I think it's a great deal for them." Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Friday on X: "This historic agreement strengthens US leadership in semiconductors." Intel is one of Silicon Valley's most iconic companies, but its fortunes have been dwarfed by Asian powerhouses TSMC and Samsung, which dominate the made-to-order semiconductor business.

The CHIPS and Science Act was aimed at strengthening the US semiconductor industry, and the Biden administration had unveiled billions in grants through it. It finalized a $7.9 billion award in direct funding to Intel in November 2024, according to a US Department of Commerce statement. "This is a slippery slope," independent tech analyst Rob Enderle said of the United States taking a stake in Intel. "This is one of those things that kind of brings chills because it's a step toward nationalizing private business." Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank that promotes limited government, said on X Friday that the government having a stake in Intel would be "a terrible decision, bad for almost everyone."

He said it would be "bad for Intel's long-term viability, as politics, not commercial considerations, increasingly drive its decisions" and that "foreign governments might also target it." In a statement, Tan of Intel said it is "deeply committed to ensuring the world's most advanced technologies are American made." The company said it is investing more than $100 billion to expand its US sites. Earlier this month, Trump had demanded Tan resign after a Republican senator raised national security concerns over his links to firms in China. Japan-based tech investor SoftBank Group also recently said it would invest $2 billion in Intel.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has embarked on a major artificial intelligence spending spree, poaching top researchers with expensive pay packages from rivals like OpenAI and Apple as he builds a team to pursue what he calls AI superintelligence.

"I'm excited to build personal superintelligence for everyone in the world," Zuckerberg said in an earnings call late last month. Meta is locked in a bitter rivalry with other tech behemoths as they invest heavily in AI. The deal with Meta is among the biggest in the 17-year history of Google's cloud unit, according to the source.

Google parent Alphabet's cloud computing business was on pace to bring in $50 billion over the course of the year, the company said in a recent earnings report. Meta also reported robust second-quarter financial results, and significantly increased its capital expenditures to $17 billion in the quarter, primarily for AI infrastructure investments. Meta projected total 2025 capital spending between $66 billion and $72 billion.

A strong quarter "won't shield Meta from questions concerning the company's future as it breathlessly tries to keep up in the AI race," Emarketer analyst Minda Smiley said of the quarterly earnings. In a post outlining Meta's AI strategy, Zuckerberg has signaled that the remainder of the decade would be a transformative period for artificial intelligence development and that the company's priority was to bring AI to its users.

The line-up of new products included a foldable phone, improved Pixel smartwatch, and ear buds all synced to work with AI and each other. "Pixel continues to be the best way for people to try out the latest bleeding-edge AI from Google," product manager Tyler Kugler said during a briefing with journalists. Pixel phones claim a scant portion of a high-end smartphone market ruled by Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi, but custom Google hardware is an opportunity for the internet giant to highlight what is possible with its Android mobile operating system and the Gemini AI assistant. While Samsung routinely ranks as the world's top smartphone seller, its products run on Android software. "Initially, Google Pixel devices were designed as a technological showcase to limit Android fragmentation and accelerate innovation," said Forrester principal analyst Thomas Husson.

"Ten years later, the strategic challenge is still not to become the market leader, but to demonstrate the value of Google's integrated ecosystem." The tactic promises to promote use of Google's platform by handset makers and is a spin on the way Apple ties together its iPhones and other devices with its software. Meanwhile, with Apple seen as lagging in the fierce AI race, Google has touted all-out efforts to integrate advanced AI throughout its offerings as it competes with powerhouses such as Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. "Its positioning remains premium and its market share is less than 5 percent, but in the age of AI, it is a true laboratory of innovation," Husson said of the Pixel smartphone line. It is also "a means of countering Apple's integrated hardware-software-services strategy while remaining a strategic partner for Samsung and the Android ecosystem," Husson added.

AI built into new Pixel phones lets Gemini AI assistant look through the cameras to "see" what users see, answering questions or providing tips about locations, objects or situations, according to Kugler. Google is not the only one putting AI in phones. South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung has made AI a centerpiece of its Galaxy smartphone line and recently released a new Galaxy Z Fold7. Google's product team described the new Pixel Watch 4 as a redesigned experience that marks the biggest update to the line. Features include smartwatch fitness tracking fine-tuned to distinguish between activities such as walking, bicycling, or tennis. The Pixel Watch also enables users to command Gemini AI assistant from one's wrist. Gemini detects the mood of whoever is speaking to it and adjusts its responses accordingly, and can even "look" through the phone camera to offer photo suggestions, according to the Google team.

AI was also used to add 100x telephoto lens capability to Pixel smartphone camera. Pixel 10 prices start at $799, with the Pixel Pro Fold model starting at $1,799.

"This is a strong endorsement of our reputation as a leading and trusted news media organisation," AAP chief executive Emma Cowdroy said. A growing number of deals between news media and generative AI makers have been struck recently as tech firms look to make their natural-language responses to users' questions more relevant. AFP news agency signed a deal with Mistral in mid-January allowing the startup's chatbot to draw on the news agency's articles to formulate responses. Other news organisations have launched legal challenges over AI use of their copyrighted content.

Hawley said the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, which he heads, will start an investigation into whether Meta generative AI products "enable exploitation, deception, or other criminal harms to children." Meta was put on notice to preserve all relevant records and them to Congress by September 19.

The Missouri senator cited a reported example of Meta's AI chatbot being allowed to refer to an 8-year-old child's body as "a work of art" and "a treasure I cherish deeply." Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We've used this approach in other markets for some time, where it is working well." The age-estimation model enhances technology already in place to deduce user age, according to YouTube. Users will be notified if YouTube believes them to be minors, giving them the option to verify their age with a credit card, selfie, or government ID, according to the tech firm. Social media platforms are regularly accused of failing to protect the well-being of children. Australia will soon use its landmark social media laws to ban children under 16 from YouTube, a top minister said late last month, stressing a need to shield them from "predatory algorithms." Communications Minister Anika Wells said four-in-ten Australian children had reported viewing harmful content on YouTube, one of the most visited websites in the world.

Australia announced last year it was drafting laws that will ban children from social media sites such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram until they turn 16. "Our position remains clear: YouTube is a video sharing platform with a library of free, high-quality content, increasingly viewed on TV screens," the company said in a statement at the time. "It's not social media." On paper, the ban is one of the strictest in the world. It is due to come into effect on December 10. The legislation has been closely monitored by other countries, with many weighing whether to implement similar bans.

"xAI will take immediate legal action," he said on his social media network X, referring to his own artificial intelligence company, which is responsible for Grok. X users responded by pointing out that China's DeepSeek AI hit the top spot in the App Store early this year, and Perplexity AI recently ranked number one in the App Store in India. DeepSeek and Perplexity compete with OpenAI and Musk's startup xAI. Altman called Musk's accusation "remarkable" in a response on X, charging that Musk himself is said to "manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like." Musk called Altman a "liar" in the heated exchange.

OpenAI and xAI recently released new versions of ChatGPT and Grok. App Store rankings listed ChatGPT as the top free app for iPhones on Thursday, with Grok in seventh place. Factors going into App Store rankings include user engagement, reviews and the number of downloads. Grok was temporarily suspended on Monday in the latest controversy surrounding the chatbot. No official explanation was provided for the suspension, which followed multiple accusations of misinformation including the bot's misidentification of war-related images -- such as a false claim that an AFP photo of a starving child in Gaza was taken in Yemen years earlier. Last month, Grok triggered an online storm after inserting antisemitic comments into answers without prompting. In a statement on Grok's X account later that month, the company apologized "for the horrific behavior that many experienced."

A US judge has cleared the way for a trial to consider OpenAI legal claims accusing Musk -- a co-founder of the company -- of waging a "relentless campaign" to damage the organization after it achieved success following his departure. The litigation is another round in a bitter feud between the generative AI start-up and the world's richest person. Musk founded xAI in 2023 to compete with OpenAI and the other major AI players.

At one of the first events on Friday morning, five-aside football, 10 robots the size of seven-year-olds shuffled around the pitch, often getting stuck in a scrum or falling over en masse. However, in a 1500-metre race, domestic champion Unitree's humanoids stomped along the track at an impressive clip, easily outpacing their rivals. The fastest robot AFP witnessed finished in 6:29:37, a far cry from the human men's world record of 3:26:00. One mechanical racer barrelled straight into a human operator. The robot remained standing, while the human was knocked flat, though did not appear to be injured. Robot competitions have been held for decades, but the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games is the first to focus specifically on robots that resemble human bodies, organisers said.

The Chinese government has poured support into robotics hoping to lead the industry. Beijing has put humanoids in the "centre of their national strategy", the International Federation of Robotics wrote in a paper on Thursday. "The government wants to showcase its competence and global competitiveness in this field of technology," it added. Authorities are working to raise awareness of the sector across society. Cui Han, accompanying her 10-year-old, told AFP that her son's school had organised and paid for the trip to the Games. "I hope it will encourage him to learn more about these new technologies," she said. In March, China announced plans for a one-trillion-yuan fund to support technology startups, including those in robotics and AI.

The country is already the world's largest market for industrial robots, official statistics show, and in April, Beijing held what organisers dubbed the world's first humanoid robot half-marathon. Chen, the spectator, told AFP he was about to begin studying automation at university. "Coming here can cultivate my passion for this field," he said. "My favourite is the boxing, because... it requires a lot of agility and I can really see how the robots have improved from before." Meanwhile, at the kung fu competition area, a pint-sized robot resembling one from the popular Transformer series attempted to execute a move, but fell flat on its front. It spun around on the floor as it struggled to get back up, the crowd happily cheering.

Moscow wants the messengers to provide access to data upon request from law enforcement, not only for fraud probes but also for investigating activities that Russia describes as terrorist ones. "Access to calls in foreign messengers will be restored after they start complying with Russian legislation," Russia's digital ministry said. In a statement sent to AFP, Telegram said it "actively combats misuse of its platform, including calls for sabotage or violence, as well as fraud" and removes "millions of pieces of harmful content every day". Since launching its offensive in Ukraine, Russia has drastically restricted press freedom and freedom of speech online.

"WhatsApp is private, end-to-end encrypted, and defies government attempts to violate people's right to secure communication, which is why Russia is trying to block it from over 100 million Russian people," a spokesperson for Meta-owned WhatsApp told AFP. More than 100 million people in Russia use WhatsApp for messages and calls, and the platform is concerned that this is an effort to push them onto platforms more vulnerable to government surveillance, according to the spokesperson.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Factors going into App Store rankings include user engagement, reviews, and the number of downloads. OpenAI and Apple in June of last year announced an alliance to enhance iPhones and other devices with ChatGPT features. ChatGPT-5 rolled out free to the nearly 700 million people who use it weekly, OpenAI said in a briefing with journalists last week. Tech industry rivals Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and xAI have been pouring billions of dollars into artificial intelligence since the blockbuster launch of the first version of ChatGPT in late 2022. Chinese startup DeepSeek shook up the AI sector early this year with a model that delivers high performance using less costly chips. OpenAI in April of this year filed counterclaims against multi-billionaire Musk, accusing its former co-founder of waging a "relentless campaign" to damage the organization after it achieved success without him. In legal documents filed at the time in northern California federal court, OpenAI alleged Musk became hostile toward the company after abandoning it years before its breakthrough achievements with ChatGPT.

The lawsuit was another round in a bitter feud between the generative AI (genAI) start-up and the world's richest man, who sued OpenAI last year, accusing the company of betraying its founding mission. In its countersuit, the company alleged Musk "made it his project to take down OpenAI, and to build a direct competitor that would seize the technological lead -- not for humanity but for Elon Musk." Musk founded his own genAI startup, xAI, in 2023 to compete with OpenAI and the other major AI players.

"There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own," Hanks said in an Instagram post. "Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space and for longer than any other person of our planet, was that kind of guy." Launched on April 11, 1970 -- nine months after Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon -- Apollo 13 was intended to be humanity's third lunar landing. The plan was that Lovell would walk on the Moon. The mission, which was also crewed by astronauts Jack Swigert and Fred Haise, was already considered fairly routine. Then an oxygen tank exploded on the way there.

The disaster prompted Swigert to famously tell mission control: "Houston, we've had a problem." Lovell then repeated the phrase, which is slightly different to the one used in the Ron Howard movie, according to NASA. The three astronauts and crew on the ground scrambled to find a solution. The United States followed the chaotic odyssey from the ground, fearing that the country could lose its first astronauts in space. Around 200,000 miles from Earth, the crew was forced to shelter in their Lunar Module, slingshot around the Moon and rapidly return to Earth. The composed leadership of Lovell -- who was nicknamed "Smilin' Jim" -- and the ingenuity of the NASA team on the ground managed to get the crew safely back home. Lovell was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but never returned to space.

Born on March 25, 1928 in Cleveland, Ohio, Lovell worked as a Navy pilot before joining NASA. He was one of three astronauts who became the first people to orbit the Moon during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. The mission also took the famous image "Earthrise," in which the blue planet peeks out from beyond the Moon. Lovell's family said they were "enormously proud of his amazing life and career," according to a statement released by NASA. "But, to all of us, he was Dad, Granddad, and the Leader of our family. Most importantly, he was our Hero," the statement added. "We will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible."

After the capsule splashes down, it will be recovered by a SpaceX ship and hoisted aboard. Only then will the astronauts be able to breathe Earth's air again, for the first time in months. The astronauts, known as Crew-10, conducted numerous scientific experiments during their time on the space station, including studying plant growth and how cells react to gravity. Their launch into space in March was heavily scrutinized because it finally allowed two US astronauts -- who had been unexpectedly stuck onboard the space station for nine months -- to return home. When they launched in June 2024, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were only supposed to spend eight days in space on a test of the Boeing Starliner's first crewed flight.

However, the spaceship developed propulsion problems and was deemed unfit to fly back, leaving them stranded in space. NASA announced this week that Wilmore has decided to retire after 25 years of service at the US space agency. Last week, US astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan's Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov boarded the ISS for a six-month mission.

"Turned it off immediately once I knew but had me feeling absolutely sick about it." In a TikTok video, Flanagan called Instagram's new location sharing feature "dangerous" and gave step-by-step instructions on how to make sure it is turned off. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri fired off a post on Meta-owned Threads stressing that Instagram location sharing is off by default, meaning users need to opt in for it to be active. "Quick Friend Map clarification, your location will only be shared if you decide to share it, and if you do, it can only be shared with a limited group of people you choose," Mosseri wrote. "To start, location sharing is completely off."

The feature was added as a way for friends to better connect with one another, sharing posts from "cool spots," Instagram said in a blog post. Users can be selective regarding who they share locations with, and can turn it off whenever they wish, according to Instagram. Wariness regarding whether Instagram is watching out for user privacy comes just a week after a federal jury in San Francisco sided with women who accused Meta of exploiting health data gathered by the Flo app, which tracks menstruation and efforts to get pregnant. A jury concluded that Meta used women's sensitive health data to better target money-making ads, according to law firm Labaton Keller Sucharow, which represented the plaintiffs.

Evidence at trial showed Meta was aware it was getting confidential health data from the third-party app, and that some employees appeared to mock the nature of the information, the law firm contended. "This case was about more than just data -- it was about dignity, trust, and accountability," lead attorney Carol Villegas said in a blog post. Damages in the suit have yet to be determined.

He said this will help the hilly students become proficient in technology, which will support their higher education and career development. Arrangements are being made to provide technology-driven quality education to students from ethnically diverse groups in the Chattogram Hill Tracts. When asked about ensuring quality education for the ethnic groups of the Chattogram Hill Tracts, Supradip Chakma said, “My concern has always been to ensure quality education in the Chattogram Hill Tracts.” “We have to compete (with other regions). We will not always have a quota. To compete, we have to establish some good schools and colleges in CHT,” he added. 

"My concern is satellite education. For this, hostels have to be built at the upazila and district levels,” he said. He said the government wants to set up engineering college, nursing college and hostels, orphanages and students' dormitories in the area. Besides, Supradip Chakma said, the government has three-year-long bamboo cultivation plan and more veterinary and fisheries projects to make the people of the area self-reliant. He said bamboo would be the main factor for the economic development of the hill districts. “We want to increase the production and use of bamboo for building the strong economic backbone of the CHT and reduce the water scarcity of the area,” he said.

He said, “We want to develop the hill areas without changing the nature and environment. Bamboo is a very effective and important instrument to protect the environment of the hill region,” he said. He said the government has taken initiatives to cultivate cashew nuts, coffee and maize in the CHT area. The adviser said the government is actively working for development of the hill districts aiming to foster economic self-reliance and secure the rights of all communities in the region. “This government is committed to upholding the rights of all citizens. To help attain economic reliance for everyone, we’re undertaking various initiatives. We’re also working to make sure that none in the CHT is deprived,” he said.

He said the present government wants to take the country forward by maintaining communal harmony. Supradip Chakma said, “The goal of this government is to protect the rights of all the communities and build a non-communal country. It has opened all the doors for development in the Chattogram Hill Tracts. The hilly people are lagging behind in the agriculture sector. We want to widely spread the coffee and cashew nut produced in the three districts of the Chattogram Hill Tracts to other parts in the country and abroad.”

“We, the people of the hilly regions, do not want to be left behind anymore. We want to blend in with the mainstream of the country. All concerned should contribute to the society. We should think about society, religion and the state. Our honorable Chief Adviser has announced to take the country forward maintaining the communal harmony. Everyone has to be united here,” he added.

Supradip Chakma also said the potential of Kaptai Lake should be utilized properly. He compared Kaptai Lake in Rangamati to gold, saying that the lake has huge potential for fish farming that can help develop earning opportunities for the people. 

The adviser reaffirmed the government's commitment to the inclusive development, saying, "The present government is ready to support us in every way. With the leadership of the Chief Adviser and cooperation from all stakeholders, we aim to build a prosperous and unified Bangladesh. This administration is dedicated to the welfare of all citizens." The government has been relentlessly trying to create a better and congenial sports atmosphere for the students of the hill area.

The report also found companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Skype did not use tools to proactively detect child sex abuse material. Tech companies are required to report to the commission every six months on how they are tackling child sexual abuse material, including AI-generated images. Inman Grant said she hoped she would see "meaningful progress". Australia last year unveiled landmark laws that will ban under-16s from social media by the end of 2025. The government had previously indicated YouTube would be exempt, given its widespread use in classrooms. But last week it announced the video-streaming site, one of the most visited websites in the world, would also be included in the ban. Firms face fines of up to Aus$49.5 million (US$32 million) for failing to comply. Officials are yet to solve basic questions surrounding the laws, such as how the ban will be policed.

Preparing for retirement, Uglesic says she owes her mental well-being to her passion for the "Spacek", or "little freak". That is what one journalist, bewildered by the car's appearance, called the 2CV when it appeared in the Yugoslav market in the early 50s. "When I get home from work and my husband asks me if I would go for a ride with our 'Spacek', I'm immediately for it! I put on my Citroen T-shirt, open the foldable roof and go for it," Uglesic said. The Citroen 2CV was launched in 1948 as the French carmaker Citroen's answer to Germany's Volkswagen Beetle. The 2CV stands for "deux chevaux" (two horses), a reference to its original horsepower. Admired for its simplicity, utilitarian design and low-cost maintenance, more than five million 2CVs were built until 1990, when production stopped due to tougher emissions standards.

Uglesic is one of more than 300 volunteers who organised the 25th world meeting of 2CV friends at an airfield near the Postojna cave, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of the capital Ljubljana. The previous gathering was in Switzerland in 2023. "If you want to, you can repair it yourself thanks to the engine's simplicity," 55-year-old Italian Gabriele Salvoni told AFP. He was sitting with friends, drinking a beer, eating popcorn and surrounded by four 2CVs in different colours. His group did the 400-kilometres-long trip to Postojna driving at 80 to 90 kilometres per hour, letting traditional Italian supercars shoot past them. "This is a different world, we travel in peace, that is our way of living," Salvoni said proudly, displaying tatoos on his chest representing two 2CVs with the names of his two children. Their cars were parked in one of the many camping areas marked by organisers to leave space for more than 3,000 2CVs to parade around.

The vehicles came in many colours -- some equipped with loudspeakers, others covered in rust, or in yellow with a giant duck on the roof. "This car is a piece of art," Uglesic said. "Many here take it as a white canvas on which you can paint whatever you like." As she spoke, a limousine-like 2CV, extended to double its usual length, passed by. The camp appeared to be a series of parties happening at the same time but in perfect harmony. From time to time, a column of cars formed to drive along the kilometre-plus main "road" separating two sides of the camp. They sounded their horns as passers-by sang along to the music from their loudspeakers.

Many of the participants were not even born when 2CV production stopped. "It was my dream for years," 26-year-old freelance artist Jamie said as she sat with her 32-year-old boyfriend Mike under a tent hanging from her blue 2CV. "I went to France and I fell in love with the car." Mike, who works in aircraft maintenance, is teaching her to repair it herself. He admitted that, when it rained, their recently restored foldable roof "drips a little, but just on one side, but we don't really mind". They drove from Hamburg in Germany, where highways have some of the fastest speed limits in the world. "I don't mind being the slow one on the highway," Jamie said. "I think it's better to slow down. Maybe they should learn something from us: to chill a bit."

Not far away, 16-year-old Aleksandar Dincic from Vranje in Serbia and his father were checking out a tent where 2CV spare parts were being sold. "I adore these cars, they are very good and can easily be driven in the 21st century," Dincic said. And his father had promised him one for his 18th birthday, he added. "It's a car that you drive with pleasure," he said with a smile. 

Min Prasad Aryal, spokesperson for the Nepal Telecommunication Authority, confirmed the government's directive. "We asked all internet service providers to block the app after receiving an order from the Prime Minister's Office," Aryal told AFP. In a statement sent to AFP, Telegram said it had "always responded to Nepal's legal requests" and that it "actively moderates harmful content on its platform and removes cases of fraud and money laundering as soon as they are discovered, although we have not received any reports of this from Nepalese authorities". Nepal has restricted access to popular online platforms in the past. In August last year, the government lifted a nine-month ban on TikTok after the platform's South Asia division agreed to comply with Nepali regulations.

Telegram, launched in 2013, is a cloud-based messaging app known for its privacy features and support for large group chats and broadcast channels. The app has an estimated billion users worldwide, but faces restrictions in some countries. Telegram's Russian-born founder and chief executive Pavel Durov was briefly detained in France last year and questioned again this week about the platform's alleged complicity in criminal activity.

Doctors and psychologists in Bangladesh are raising concerns about the increasing health risks associated with smartphone addiction, particularly among youth and working professionals.

Smartphone Addiction: A Silent Epidemic?

Recent studies show that nearly 65% of smartphone users aged between 18 and 35 spend more than 5 hours a day on their devices. Many even check their phones the moment they wake up and continue using them until they fall asleep.

Professor Dr. Mahbuba Rahman from the Department of Psychology at the University of Dhaka explains:

“Smartphone usage triggers dopamine release in the brain, giving users a sense of pleasure. This leads to repeated use, forming a cycle of dependency. Over time, it can cause mental fatigue, attention deficiency, and even depression.”

Blue Light: An Enemy to Sleep

Medical experts highlight that blue light emitted from smartphone screens disrupts melatonin production in the brain, a hormone crucial for regulating sleep.

Dr. Riazul Islam, a medicine specialist at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, states:

“Night-time phone use is disturbing people's natural sleep cycles. This not only reduces sleep quality but also weakens the immune system, increasing risks of high blood pressure, headaches, and fatigue.”

Eye Strain and Physical Discomfort

Staring at screens for prolonged periods causes eye strain, blurred vision, dry eyes, and frequent headaches—a condition now known as “digital eye strain.” Additionally, poor posture during phone use contributes to neck pain, backaches, and joint stress.

A Greater Threat to Children and Teenagers

In many households, smartphones are often used to pacify children. While it may work momentarily, the long-term impact is alarming.

Dr. Labiba Nowrin, a pediatric specialist at the National Institute of Child Health, warns:

“Children under two should avoid screens altogether. Excessive screen time hinders language development, attention span, behavioral control, and sleep quality. Lack of physical activity also increases the risk of obesity and early-stage diabetes.”

Decline in Social Bonds

As smartphone dependency increases, direct communication within families and friendships is diminishing. Psychologists say relationships are being weakened as people become more absorbed in virtual interactions rather than real ones.

What Can Be Done?

Health experts recommend a set of guidelines to reduce risks:

• Limit daily screen time
• Avoid smartphone use at least one hour before bed
• Spend quality time with family without devices
• Avoid giving children unrestricted access to smartphones
• Introduce “digital detox” periods regularly

Technology should serve humanity—not dominate it. Responsible and limited smartphone use can ensure we enjoy the benefits of technology without falling victim to its side effects. Creating awareness at home, in schools, and across society is essential to curb this growing concern.

Related Facts:

• A 2025 national survey revealed that 74% of Bangladeshi youth check social media before going to sleep.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that children under the age of 5 should have no more than 1 hour of screen time per day.

The Russian official is also due to meet the NASA's Crew-11 mission team, including cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, ahead of the launch aboard the SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, scheduled for July 31. The recently-appointed head of the Russian space agency will also visit NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Centre as well as Boeing's and SpaceX's facilities producing spacecraft. As part of the slew of sanctions imposed on Russia since its assault on Ukraine, many Western countries ceased partnerships with Roscosmos, but Soyuz remains one of the few spacecrafts capable of reaching the ISS. Russia's space programme, which for decades has been a source of great pride for the country, has been suffering for years from a chronic lack of funding, corruption scandals and failures such as the Luna-25 probe in August 2023.

The California-based company produces some of the world's most advanced semiconductors but cannot ship its most cutting-edge chips to China due to concerns that Beijing could use them to enhance military capabilities. Nvidia developed the H20 -- a less powerful version of its AI processing units -- specifically for export to China. However, that plan stalled when the Trump administration tightened export licensing requirements in April. "The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon," the company said in a statement Tuesday, adding it was "filing applications to sell the Nvidia H20 GPU again". The announcement from Nvidia boosted tech firms around the world, with Wall Street's Nasdaq exchange rising to another record high and stocks in Hong Kong also rallying. The tightened US export curbs come as China's economy wavers, with domestic consumers reluctant to spend and a prolonged property sector crisis weighing on growth.

President Xi Jinping has called for greater self-reliance in the face of increasing external uncertainty. And in a thinly veiled swipe at Trump in his opening remarks at the expo, Vice Premier He Lifeng said: "... some countries are interfering in the market under the pretext of reducing risk, using measures such as imposing tariffs." "Global changes of a century are accelerating, with multiple risks intertwining and piling up," he said. "We need to further build a shared consensus on development, firmly oppose the politicisation... and over-securitisation of economic and trade issues, and work together to uphold an open and cooperative international environment."

"While businesses have slowed down investing in factories and equipment during uncertain times, they're doubling down on intangible assets," he said, stressing that "this trend has profound implications for policymakers". "Countries that understand and nurture intangible investment will be better positioned to grow and thrive in a global economy increasingly driven by technological, digital and cultural innovation." In 2024, the United States led in absolute levels of intangible asset purchases, investing nearly double what runners-up France, Germany, Japan and Britain pumped into such assets, WIPO said. Sweden meanwhile remained the world's most intangible-asset-intensive economy, with such investments accounting for 16 percent of the country's gross domestic product. The United States, France and Finland followed, each with an intensity of 15 percent of GDP. India's intangible investment intensity of nearly 10 percent put it ahead of several European Union economies and of Japan, WIPO said.

The report indicated that investment in intangible assets has shown sustained and resilient growth even during periods of crisis, swelling at a compound annual rate of around four percent between 2008 and 2024. That compares to just one percent for tangible asset investments, WIPO said. Software and databases account for the fastest growing types of intangible asset investments, growing by more than seven percent annually between 2013 and 2022, the report showed. At the same time, it highlighted that such investments coincided with and were likely driven by the current artificial intelligence boom. AI has already been driving investments in tangible infrastructure, including chips, servers and data centres, and the report suggested it had begun boosting more intangible investments in things like data sets needed to train AI systems. "People think that we are already in the middle of the AI (boom), but we are actually just at the beginning," Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, head of WIPO's department for economics and data analytics.

"No farmer that we've ever talked to said 'I'm in love with chemicals'," added Aigen co-founder and chief executive Kenny Lee, whose background is in software. "They use it because it's a tool -- we're trying to create an alternative." Element the robot resembles a large table on wheels, solar panels on top. Metal arms equipped with small blades reach down to hoe between crop plants. "It actually mimics how humans work," Lee said as the temperature hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) under a cloudless sky. "When the sun goes down, it just powers down and goes to sleep; then in the morning it comes back up and starts going again." The robot's AI system takes in data from on-board cameras, allowing it to follow crop rows and identify weeds. "If you think this is a job that we want humans doing, just spend two hours in the field weeding," Wurden said. Aigen's vision is for workers who once toiled in the heat to be "upskilled" to monitor and troubleshoot robots.

Along with the on-board AI, robots communicate wirelessly with small control centers, notifying handlers of mishaps. Aigen has robots running in tomato, cotton, and sugar beet fields, and touts the technology's ability to weed without damaging the crops. Lee estimated that it takes about five robots to weed 160 acres (65 hectares) of farm. The robots made by the 25-person startup -- based in the city of Redmond, outside Seattle -- are priced at $50,000. The company is focused on winning over politically conservative farmers with a climate friendly option that relies on the sun instead of costly diesel fuel that powers heavy machinery. "Climate, the word, has become politicized but when you get really down to brass tacks farmers care about their land," Lee said. The technology caught the attention of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the e-commerce giant's cloud computing unit.

Aigen was chosen for AWS's "Compute for Climate" fellowship program that provides AI tools, data center power, and technical help for startups tackling environmental woes. "Aigen is going to be one of the industry giants in the future," said AWS head of climate tech startups business development Lisbeth Kaufman. "I think about Ford and the Model T, or Edison and the light bulb -- that's Kenny and Rich and Aigen." 

This would mean it is not bound by the Sun's orbit, unlike those asteroids and comets that remain within the solar system. Its trajectory also "means it's not orbiting our star, but coming from interstellar space and flying off to there again," Moissl said. "We think that probably these little ice balls get formed associated with star systems," added McDowell. "And then as another star passes by, tugs on the ice ball, frees it out. It goes rogue, wanders through the galaxy, and now this one is just passing us." The NASA-funded ATLAS survey in Hawaii first discovered the object on Tuesday, US astronomer David Rankin wrote on the social media platform Bluesky. Professional and amateur astronomers across the world then searched through past telescope data, tracing its trajectory back to at least June 14. The object is currently estimated to be roughly 10-20 kilometers wide, Moissl said, which would make it the largest interstellar interloper ever detected. But the object could be smaller if it is made out of ice, which reflects more light.

"It will get brighter and closer to the Sun until late October and then still be observable (by telescope) until next year," Moissl said. This marks only the third time humanity has detected an object entering the solar system from the stars. The first, 'Oumuamua, was discovered in 2017. It was so strange that at least one prominent scientist became convinced it was an alien vessel -- though this has since been dismissed by further research. Our second interstellar visitor, 2I/Borisov, was spotted in 2019. Mark Norris, an astronomer at the UK's University of Central Lancashire, told AFP that the new object appears to be "moving considerably faster than the other two extrasolar objects that we previously discovered." The object is currently roughly around the distance from Jupiter away from Earth, Norris said. He lamented that he would not be able to observe the object on his telescope on Wednesday night, because it is currently only visible in the Southern Hemisphere.

Norris pointed to modelling estimating that there could be as many as 10,000 interstellar objects drifting through the Solar System at any given time, though most would be smaller than the newly discovered object. If true, this suggests that the newly online Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile could soon be finding these dim interstellar visitors every month, Norris said. Moissl said it is not feasible to send a mission into space to intercept the new object. Still, these visitors offer scientists a rare chance to study something outside of our Solar System. For example, if we detected precursors of life such as amino acids on such an object, it would give us "a lot more confidence that the conditions for life exist in other star systems," Norris said.

AI companies generally defend their practices by claiming fair use, arguing that training AI on large datasets fundamentally transforms the original content and is necessary for innovation. "We are pleased that the court recognized that using 'works to train LLMs was transformative,'" an Anthropic spokesperson said in response to an AFP query. The judge's decision is "consistent with copyright's purpose in enabling creativity and fostering scientific progress," the spokesperson added. The ruling stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who accused Anthropic of illegally copying their books to train Claude, the company's AI chatbot that rivals ChatGPT. However, Alsup rejected Anthropic's bid for blanket protection, ruling that the company's practice of downloading millions of pirated books to build a permanent digital library was not justified by fair use protections. Along with downloading books from websites offering pirated works, Anthropic bought copyrighted books, scanned the pages and stored them in digital formats, according to court documents.

Anthropic's aim was to amass a library of "all the books in the world" for training AI models on content as deemed fit, the judge said in his ruling. While training AI models on the pirated content posed no legal violation, downloading pirated copies to build a general-purpose library constituted copyright infringement, the judge ruled, regardless of eventual training use. The case will now proceed to trial on damages related to the pirated library copies, with potential penalties including financial damages. Anthropic said it disagreed with going to trial on this part of the decision and was evaluating its legal options. "Judge Alsup's decision is a mixed bag," said Keith Kupferschmid, chief executive of US nonprofit Copyright Alliance. "In some instances AI companies should be happy with the decision and in other instances copyright owners should be happy." Valued at $61.5 billion and heavily backed by Amazon, Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives. The company, known for its Claude chatbot and AI models, positions itself as focused on AI safety and responsible development.

All use of AI for the military will be consistent with OpenAI usage guidelines, according to the startup. Big tech companies are increasingly pitching their tools to the US military, among them Meta, OpenAI and, more predictably, Palantir, the AI defense company founded by Peter Thiel, the conservative tech billionaire who has played a major role in Silicon Valley's rightward shift. OpenAI and defense tech startup Anduril Industries late last year announced a partnership to develop and deploy AI solutions "for security missions." The alliance brings together OpenAI models and Anduril's military tech platform to ramp up defenses against aerial drones and other "unmanned aircraft systems", according to the companies. "OpenAI builds AI to benefit as many people as possible, and supports US-led efforts to ensure the technology upholds democratic values," OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said at the time.

CEO Sundar Pichai recently unveiled a new AI mode in Google search. The search engine's nascent AI mode goes further than AI Overviews which display answers to queries from the tech giant's generative AI powers above the traditional blue links to websites and ads. Since Google debuted AI Overviews in search slightly more than a year ago, it has grown to more than 1.5 billion users across several countries, according to Pichai. Google's push into generative AI comes amid intensifying competition with OpenAI's ChatGPT, which has itself incorporated search engine features into its popular chatbot.

Around 14,000 startups and more than 3,000 investors are expected to travel to Paris from around the world, while organisers forecast total visitor numbers to at least equal last year's 165,000 people. Nvidia's Huang -- likely sporting his trademark leather jacket -- has top billing with an opening presentation slated to last more than an hour. Bitouzet said it was a "source of pride" to bring aboard semiconductor heavyweight Nvidia, whose high-powered GPUs (graphics processing units) are widely used to power the latest generative AI models. "It proves that the European market in general and the French market in particular are attractive and that today (Nvidia) has ambitions for this market," the Vivatech boss added. EY's European tech, media and telecoms chief Cedric Foray predicted that "there will definitely be announcements targeted at Europe" from Nvidia. The US firm has seen export restrictions slapped on its top-performing chips by both the Joe Biden and Donald Trump administrations, with US politicians leery of ceding their country's lead in generative AI.

Huang has warned that China is nevertheless making swift strides to catch up. There was little sign of impact from export restrictions on Nvidia's chip sales in its May earnings release. But the company has warned the braking effect may be larger in the current quarter. US politics preoccupies many European tech leaders and policymakers too. Concerns range from Trump's mercurial tariff policy to the continent's ability to stand on its own without US giants -- and the massive gap in funding for AI development between the two sides of the Atlantic. "Sovereignty, which wasn't as important in the conversation just a year or two years ago, has become an absolutely strategic priority," Bitouzet said. Macron is expected to again emphasise "European technological sovereignty", the Elysee said. Such remarks from the president would build on his hyping of French and European openness to AI at a Paris global summit in February. Top French firms at Vivatech -- where around half the exhibitors are local companies -- will include Mistral AI, a French competitor to much-bigger OpenAI. Mistral's founder Arthur Mensch is set to discuss AI with Macron and Huang at a roundtable at the end of the first day of the event.

"I don't think there is going to be that much of a celebratory tone at WWDC," the analyst told AFP. "It could be more of a way for Apple to recover some credibility by showing where they're headed." Industry insiders will be watching to see whether Apple addresses the AI stumble or focuses on less splashy announcements, including a rumored overhaul of its operating systems for its line of devices. "The bottom line is Apple seemed to underestimate the AI shift, then over-promised features, and is now racing to catch up," Gene Munster and Brian Baker of Deepwater Asset Management wrote in a WWDC preview note. Rumors also include talk that Apple may add GenAI partnerships with Google or Perplexity to an OpenAI alliance announced a year ago. Infusing its lineup with AI is only one of Apple's challenges.

Developers, who build apps and tools to run on the company's products, may be keen for Apple to loosen its tight control of access to iPhones. "There's still a lot of strife between Apple and developers," Sevilla said. "Taking 30 percent commissions from them and then failing to deliver on promises for new functionality-that's a double black eye." A lawsuit by Fortnite maker Epic Games ended with Apple being ordered to allow outside payment systems to be used at the US App Store, but developers may want more, according to the analyst. "Apple does need to give an olive branch to the developer community, which has been long-suffering," Sevilla said. "They can't seem to thrive within the restrictive guardrails that Apple has been putting up for decades now." As AI is incorporated into Apple software, the company may need to give developers more ability to sync apps to the platform, according to Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi.

"Maybe with AI it's the first time that Apple needs to rethink the open versus closed ecosystem," Milanesi said. Adding to the WWDC buildup is that the legendary designer behind the iPhone, Jony Ive, has joined with ChatGPT maker OpenAI to create a potential rival device for engaging with AI. "It puts Apple on the defensive because the key designer for your most popular product is saying there is something better than the iPhone," Sevilla said. While WWDC has typically been a software-focused event, Apple might unveil new hardware to show it is still innovating, the analyst speculated. And while unlikely to come up at WWDC, Apple has to deal with tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump in his trade war with China, a key market for sales growth as well as the place where most iPhones are made.

Trump has also threatened to hit Apple with tariffs if iPhone production wasn't moved to the US, which analysts say is impossible given the costs and capabilities. "The whole idea of having an American-made iPhone is a pipe dream; you'd have to rewrite the rules of global economics," said Sevilla. One of the things Apple has going for it is that its fans are known for their loyalty and likely to remain faithful regardless of how much time it takes the company to get its AI act together, Milanesi said. "Do people want a smarter Siri? Hell yeah," Milanesi said. "But if you are in Apple, you're in Apple and you'll continue to buy their stuff."

In a post on his verified Facebook account today, he stated that "The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has implemented this price reduction to enhance accessibility and ease of internet use across the country."

In another post, Asif Mahmud provided an update on the country's financial reserves. He mentioned that "The reserve is expected to reach between $ 27 and $ 30 billion next month, with a long-term target of $ 40 billion, which will require time to achieve." 

He added, "According to the latest data from the central bank- Bangladesh Bank, as of May 19, the gross reserves stand at $ 25,444.43 million, while under the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) BPM-6 accounting system, the reserves are currently $ 20,007.59 million."

"Fortnite is BACK on the App Store in the US on iPhones and iPads... and on the Epic Games Store and AltStore in the EU!" the game maker proclaimed in a post on X.

Last week, "Fortnite" became unavailable on the App Store around the world, apparently as the result of an updated version of the game being rejected by Apple.

While Fortnite with its millions of daily players had already been unavailable to iPhone users in the United States, the block on downloads of the cartoonish multiplayer shooter affected the entire globe.

While Apple did not reply to a request for comment on Tuesday, it said previously it had asked Epic in Sweden to resubmit its app update without a newly added digital storefront permitted as the result of a lawsuit in the United States.

Neither Apple nor Epic disclosed what cleared the way for the Fornite app's return in the United States.

North Carolina-based Epic has battled Apple and Google for years over commissions they charge on transactions at their official stores for digital goods tailored for iOS or Android operating systems.

These are historically the way most users install apps onto their devices.

Although it has secured wins in US courts and European Union digital regulations, Epic effectively accused Apple of slow-walking the vetting process it enforces before making an app or game available for users to download.

Fans in the European Union can usually download the game through the company's own app store since the Digital Markets Act, which went into effect last year, requires Apple and other US tech giants to open up their platforms to competition.

- 'Junk fees' -
"Fortnite" is a heavyweight of the gaming world, with Epic claiming around 500 million users in 2023.

But players have grown used to upsets as the publisher has filed legal cases against both Apple and Google over what it calls "junk fees."

Apple's commissions for App Store purchases, which can range as high as 30 percent, come "at the expense of consumers and developers," Epic has argued.

Epic has faced off against Apple in US courts since 2021, when "Fortnite" was banned from the App Store over what Apple said was an attempt to get around the iPhone maker's payment system.

A judge found that the App Store was anticompetitive as it forbade developers from offering alternative avenues for payment.

But the conflict has endured past the US court order and the EU's requirement that Apple and Google allow third-party app stores on their operating systems.

A US federal judge said earlier this month that Apple was failing to comply with her three-year-old order that emerged from Epic's case, which requires the iPhone maker to allow other avenues for users to buy content or services.

The App Store changes include letting app makers use alternate payment systems free or charge or commission.

Epic quickly capitalized on the new court action, submitting Fortnite afresh to be vetted for inclusion in the App Store.

Epic had cast the order as an opening of the floodgates to allow other software developers to escape Apple's fees.

In a joint filing on Thursday, Epic and Apple told the judge they have resolved the issues that led Epic to request an order enforcing her decision in the case.

No details were provided regarding the resolution.

Chief Adviser’s Deputy Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder wrote this in a statement posted on verified Facebook account this morning.

In a post on its X account today, the Starlink confirmed its launch in Bangladesh, saying "Starlink's high-speed, low-latency internet is now available in Bangladesh!"

Starlink initially announced two packages - Starlink Residence and Residence Lite with monthly cost Taka 6,000 and Taka 4,200 respectively.

There will be a one-time cost of Taka 47,000 for setup equipment but there is no speed and data limit here, Azad said, adding people can use unlimited data with speeds of up to 300 Mbps.

The deputy press secretary said customers in Bangladesh can order the Starlink service from today.

Through this, he said, the expectation of starting the journey of Starlink in Bangladesh within 90 days has been fulfilled.

Although the cost of Starlink service is high, this has created a sustainable alternative for premium customers to get high-quality and high-speed internet services, Azad said.

In addition, he said, companies will get the opportunity to expand their business in areas where fiber or high-speed internet services have not reached yet.

Azad said NGOs, freelancers and entrepreneurs will now get the assurance of uninterrupted high-speed internet throughout the year.

Musk told an event hosted by Microsoft that his company's models "aspire to truth with minimal error," adding that "there's always going to be some mistakes that are made."

The Grok chatbot last week ignited controversy by answering unrelated user prompts with unbacked right-wing propaganda about purported oppression of white South Africans.

In a recorded conversation with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Musk said that xAI would always acknowledge mistakes with its Grok AI models.

"It's incredibly important for AI models to be grounded in reality," the Tesla tycoon said.

Generative AI models are often pre-programmed by engineers -- through things known as system prompts -- to give or avoid specific responses or convey certain moods or styles, no matter the input given by the user.

Most recently, the latest model from industry leader OpenAI was found to be generating overly sycophantic responses, and the company quickly said it would make changes to remove the bug.

The answers provided by Grok drew alarm as they reflected a conspiracy theory often shared on social media by Musk, who was born in South Africa.

The company did not identify who made the code change, but said an "unauthorized modification" directed Grok to provide a specific response that "violated xAI's internal policies and core values."

Faced with criticism, the startup said it was implementing measures to make Grok's system prompts public, change its review processes and put in place a "24/7 monitoring team" to address future incidents.

While not specifically referring to the incident, Musk told the Microsoft event that xAI will practice transparency when mistakes are made.

This could be interpreted as a dig at archrival OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which is Microsoft's main partner to build its in-house Copilot models.

OpenAI, which was co-founded by Musk in 2015, is often criticized for keeping its technology's internal workings secret, as opposed to more open models like Meta's Llama or the technology from Chinese company DeepSeek.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also appeared remotely at the Microsoft Build event in Seattle, speaking in a live Q&A with Nadella in which the two tech leaders vaunted the latest developments in their joint partnership.

- 'Virtual teammate' -
The Grok models from xAI will be available on Microsoft's Azure AI Foundry, a platform that makes hundreds of models available for paying developers to build their own generative AI models.

The platform gives users access to popular models from various creators such as OpenAI, DeepSeek, Mistral, Meta, Stability AI, and now xAI.

AI tools for writing software code are rapidly evolving into "agents" that can assist developers, according to the Microsoft chief.

Some 15 million developers have used Github CoPilot AI to code or troubleshoot at the Microsoft-owned platform, the company said.

"This is one of the biggest changes to programming that I've ever seen," Altman said during his exchange with Nadella.

"This idea that you now have a real, virtual teammate, that you can assign work to."

Microsoft last week said it was slashing unnecessary layers of management and seizing the benefits of new technology as reports said the tech behemoth was laying off thousands of workers.

The tech giant did not disclose the total amount of lost jobs but US media reports said it will amount to about 6,000 people or about three percent of its global workforce.

Initially, two packages are available, starting at Taka 4,200 per month, with a one-time setup fee of Taka 47,000 for the necessary equipment.

Chief Adviser’s Special Assistant for the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications, and Information Technology, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, announced the news in a Facebook post, while Starlink also made the declaration on their official X handle.

The cutting-edge satcom operator commenced operations within its 90-day rollout obligation after the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) granted the satcom operator a license on April 29 to expand satellite-based internet services in Bangladesh.

Taiyeb, in the Facebook post, wrote: “Starlink has officially launched operations in Bangladesh. Yesterday afternoon, they informed me about it over the phone, and this morning, they confirmed the news on their official X (formerly Twitter) account.”

Initially, Starlink is offering two packages: Starlink Residential and Residential Lite. He mentioned that the monthly cost for these packages is Tk 6,000 and Tk 4,200, respectively.

However, there is a one-time equipment cost of Tk 47,000.

Users will enjoy unlimited data with speeds of up to 300 Mbps. There are no speed or data limits with either plan.

The special assistant stated, “From today, customers in Bangladesh can start placing orders. This marks the realization of the Chief adviser's vision to launch the service within 90 days.”

Taiyeb noted that although relatively expensive, Starlink now provides a sustainable, high-quality, high-speed internet option for premium users.

Additionally, he continued, in areas where fiber or fast internet is still unavailable, this service creates new opportunities for businesses to expand and ensures uninterrupted, year-round high-speed internet access for NGOs, freelancers, and entrepreneurs.

He concluded by mentioning, “Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus has congratulated everyone involved in making this possible.”

Besides, Starlink in a post on its X account on May 20, said, "Starlink's high-speed, low-latency internet is now available in Bangladesh!"

Gilmour Space Technologies said a ground system glitch forced it to postpone the first test launch of its three-stage Eris rocket by a day until Friday.

"The issue was with an external power system we use during system checks," communications chief Michelle Gilmour told AFP.

"We've identified the fix but ran out of time to implement it and fuel the rocket within today's launch window."

The rocket has a multi-day launch window to fly from a spaceport near the east coast township of Bowen, about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) up from the Queensland capital Brisbane.

If successful, it would be the first Australian-made rocket to make an orbital launch from Australian soil.

The 23-metre (75-foot) vehicle is designed to launch small satellites into low-Earth orbit but on the first launch it will carry a jar of Vegemite -- a popular Australian toast topping.

Chief executive Adam Gilmour said the firm is not expecting things to go smoothly on the first test.

If it orbits Earth "I would probably have a heart attack, actually, because I'll be so surprised, but deliriously happy", Gilmour told AFP this week.

"We're going to be happy if it gets off the pad -- 10, 20, 30 seconds of flight time: fantastic. So orbit is just not in the realm of my belief right now, even though it's theoretically possible."

The rocket design is for a capacity of 100-200 kilogrammes (220-440 pounds), with further upgrades being developed.

Weighing 30 tonnes fully fuelled, it has a hybrid propulsion system, using a solid inert fuel and a liquid oxidiser, which provides the oxygen for it to burn, Gilmour said.

Gilmour Space Technologies is backed by private investors including venture capital group Blackbird and pension fund HESTA.

The company, which has 230 employees, hopes to start commercial launches in late 2026 or early 2027, Gilmour said, and then to rapidly grow revenues.

The S25 Edge launch is designed to tap increasing demand, especially from consumers in their 20s and 30s, for more portable smartphones.

"The feedback was clear – users wanted something slimmer and easier to carry without sacrificing performance," said Samsung, which made structural changes to reduce the thickness of internal components, including the printed circuit board and thermal systems.

Analysts said the launch was strategically timed to pre-empt Apple, which is expected to launch a thinner iPhone in the second half of this year.

"By releasing the product a few months ahead, Samsung could inflict some impact on Apple and attract consumers looking for thinner smartphones. It appears to be a calculated decision to capture that segment of demand," said Ryu Young-ho, a senior analyst at NH Investment & Securities.

The S25 Edge will go on sale in South Korea on May 23 and in the United States on May 30, Samsung said, adding it will roll it out to about 30 countries, including China and in Europe.

Starting at $1,099, the model has a 6.7-inch (170 mm) screen and a 5.8 millimetre-thick body, making it larger than the basic S25 model but only fractionally heavier.

The S25 Edge includes Samsung's latest built-in AI functions, including multimodal AI that allows users to interact with the device in real time through vision and voice, using the camera to ask questions.

Samsung did not disclose the production site for the new model.

At the launch event, Samsung dismissed concerns about potential performance and heat management issues with the device.

"Some may worry that a thinner phone compromises performance or struggles with heat management," said Samsung Electronics Executive Vice President Moon Sung-hoon.

"We managed to engineer a thinner vapor chamber to fit the slim design, and we put everything into making that happen. We’re confident the S25 Edge can be used without concerns about overheating," said Moon.

Samsung became the world’s leading smartphone vendor in the first quarter of 2025, capturing 20 percent of the global market and narrowly surpassing Apple, which held a 19 percent share, data from Counterpoint Research showed.

Samsung last month, however, said second-quarter shipments could be affected if tariff risks weaken demand.

Operating 17 hours a day, the site's goal is to generate reams of data that its owner, Chinese humanoid startup AgiBot, uses to train robots it hopes will become ubiquitous and change the way humans live, work and play.

"Just imagine that one day in our own robot factory, our robots are assembling themselves," said Yao Maoqing, a partner at AgiBot.

The importance of humanoid robots to Beijing, as it looks for solutions to pressing issues including trade frictions with the US, population decline, and slowing growth, was underscored when Chinese President Xi Jinping inspected AgiBot's robots in Shanghai last month. Xi jokingly remarked during the visit that perhaps the machines could play in a football team.

Another domestic developer of humanoid robots, Unitree, was also present in a meeting Xi hosted for private firms earlier this year, where he urged them to help China's economy.

As the US negotiates with China over tariffs that President Donald Trump had imposed to help bring back US manufacturing jobs, Beijing is aiming for a new industrial revolution where many factory tasks would be performed by humanoid robots.

In recent years, Chinese humanoid robots have demonstrated increasing feats of agility, including performing somersaults, running a half-marathon, and even playing football, as Xi mused.

But Reuters is reporting for the first time details about how China's advances in artificial intelligence, partly driven by the success of homegrown firms like DeepSeek as well as abundant government support, are allowing humanoid developers to pair the robots' already impressive hardware with the software needed to make them economically valuable.

Reuters spoke to more than a dozen people, including Chinese humanoid manufacturers, investors, customers and analysts, who described how breakthroughs in developing robot "brains" will allow these metallic machines to go from mere spectacles to productive and autodidact workers that could revolutionise the world's pre-eminent manufacturing power.

China aims to build its edge by focusing on data training and the sophistication of its AI models, the people said, with some saying the prowess of DeepSeek was a big aid.

DeepSeek and the Chinese government didn't respond to requests for comment about their roles in the development of humanoid robots.

A successful and widespread deployment of these robots in factory floors would enable China to keep driving economic growth and maintain its manufacturing superiority, making the field an area of competition with the US

Less clear is how Beijing would manage the spectre of layoffs of factory workers. State media has suggested that, as with previous industrial revolutions, long-term job creation would outweigh short-term pain.

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

Chinese authorities are handing out generous subsidies for humanoid firms. More than $20 billion has been allocated to the sector over the past year, and Beijing is establishing a one trillion yuan ($137 billion) fund to support startups in areas such as AI and robotics, official announcements show.

The government is also a key buyer, according to a Reuters review of hundreds of tender documents. State procurement of humanoid robots and related tech jumped to 214 million yuan in 2024 from 4.7 million yuan in 2023.

Other state support includes a newly created 10 billion yuan AI and robotics fund by the southern city of Shenzhen.

Humanoid robot makers and component suppliers based in Wuhan are eligible for subsidies of up to 5 million yuan after reaching thresholds for procurement and sales targets, as well as free office space.

Beijing's municipal government created a robotics fund in 2023 that offered up to 30 million yuan for companies looking to accelerate construction of their first products.

Some analysts predict that humanoids could follow the trajectory of electric vehicles, whose costs tumbled dramatically over the past decade as manufacturers rushed in and government subsidies spurred widespread adoption among the Chinese public.

The average bill of materials for a humanoid will be about $35,000 by the end of this year but could fall to $17,000 by 2030 if most of it is sourced from China, said Ming Hsun Lee, head of Greater China automotive and industrial research at Bank of America Securities, in a research note.

Three Chinese humanoid manufacturers told Reuters they predicted a similar halving of costs, perhaps within a year. In comparison, the component cost for Tesla's Optimus robots, if all of their major parts are sourced from outside China, is currently $50,000 to $60,000, Lee added in the note. Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment.

"With its comprehensive supply chain, China has an edge in lowering the humanoid robot production cost significantly," Lee told Reuters, estimating that global humanoid robot annual sales could reach 1 million units in 2030. "This industry is still in its baby boom stage."

AI AND DATA

The Chinese government is also investing heavily in data collection, which several executives said was the industry's main pain point but also an area where China had an advantage.

In comparison to generative AI, where tech companies have trained foundation models by drawing from massive online datasets of text, pictures and audio, the supply of data necessary to train AI models used to run humanoid robots, also known as embodied AI platforms, is far smaller.

Humanoids need to interact with a physical environment and train on datasets focused on tasks, such as stacking boxes or pouring water into a cup.

Last year, Shanghai authorities assisted in setting up AgiBot's data collection site, providing premises rent-free where about 100 robots operated by 200 humans work every day.

AgiBot's facility enables it to collect high-quality, targeted data, which it can use to train its embodied AI model, said Yao.

Similar sites are being built by governments in Beijing and Shenzhen, according to announcements.

Widening deployment of humanoids, especially into factories, is likely to accelerate data collection.

MagicLab, another humanoid startup, said in an interview that its focus on the robots' brains has allowed it to recently begin deploying prototypes in production lines for tasks such as quality inspection, material handling, and assembly.

"These breakthroughs lay the foundation for our focus in 2025 on real-world applications," said CEO Wu Changzheng, adding that MagicLab has integrated its robots with AI models like DeepSeek, Alibaba's Qwen, and ByteDance's Doubao.

"DeepSeek has been helpful in task reasoning and comprehension, contributing to the development of our robots' ‘brains’.”

China's clearest advantage, however, is its domination of the hardware that makes up a humanoid. The country is capable of making up to 90 percent of humanoid components, lowering barriers to entry, according to analysts and startups.

As a result, China now accounts for the majority of manufacturers working on such projects globally and dominates the supply chain, according to Morgan Stanley. Some Chinese startups are selling robots as cheaply as 88,000 yuan ($12,178).

"If you have a requirement in the morning, suppliers might come to your company with materials or products by the afternoon, or you can go directly to their site to see for yourself," said Zhang Miao, chief operating officer of Beijing-based startup CASBOT.

"It's difficult to achieve this level of efficiency overseas," she added, as companies would need to import materials from China.

The sector has seen an explosion of new firms. In 2024, 31 Chinese companies unveiled 36 competing humanoid models versus eight by US companies, according to Morgan Stanley.

At least six companies in China, including market leaders Unitree and UBTech 9880.HK, have said they have entered mass production or are preparing to do so this year.

JOBS AT RISK?

While the industry remains incipient, Chinese lawmakers have begun to discuss the far-reaching implications intelligent humanoid robots could have for the workforce.

Some 123 million people work in manufacturing in China, according to a 2023 survey by the National Bureau of Statistics.

At this year's National People's Congress, social security expert Zheng Gongcheng warned that the development of robots and AI would affect around 70 percent of China's manufacturing sector, which could lead to a steep decline in social security contributions.

At the same gathering, Liu Qingfeng, chairman of domestic AI firm iFlytek, suggested the creation of an AI unemployment insurance program that would provide six to 12 months of coverage for workers replaced by robots.

Tang Jian, chief technology officer at the government-backed Beijing Innovation Centre of Human Robotics, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Beijing robot half-marathon in April that its prototypes were targeting jobs that humans don't want to do due to their boring or repetitive nature, as well as dangerous tasks.

Despite concerns about the impact on jobs, Beijing sees the technology as key to plug labour shortages in areas such as elderly care, where demand is increasing as China's 1.4 billion population ages.

China's government published a national elderly-care plan in December that encouraged integration of humanoid robots and AI. Soon after, tech giant Ant Group announced the creation of new subsidiary Ant Lingbo Technology, whose humanoid robots will focus on elderly care, among other areas.

"The robots in five or 10 years could organise a resident's room, pick up a package or even transfer people from a bed to a washroom," said AgiBot's Yao.

That’s still an unimaginable amount of time, but it’s a major adjustment from earlier predictions, which placed the universe’s death at around 10¹¹⁰⁰ years in the future. The findings were published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

“The final end of the universe is coming much sooner than expected—but thankfully, it’s still incredibly far off,” said lead author Heino Falcke.

The research team focused on white dwarfs—stellar remnants that are among the most long-lasting objects in space. Using theories based on Hawking radiation, they calculated when these cosmic bodies might finally disappear.

Hawking radiation, proposed by physicist Stephen Hawking in the 1970s, suggests that black holes slowly emit radiation and shrink over time, ultimately vanishing. The Radboud researchers expanded this theory, applying it to white dwarfs and determining that an object’s "evaporation time" depends largely on its density.

By using this model, they estimated how long even the most enduring stars would last, refining our understanding of cosmic decay.

“By exploring extreme theoretical scenarios like this, we hope to deepen our understanding of Hawking radiation—and maybe even solve its mystery one day,” said co-author Walter van Suijlekom.

As for humanity, the end of the universe isn't our most immediate concern. Long before then, our own Sun will make Earth uninhabitable—likely in about a billion years—when it grows too hot and boils away the oceans. Eventually, in around eight billion years, the Sun will expand and consume Earth entirely.

In the grand scheme of cosmic time, we’re just getting started.

A key point of negotiation is the equity stake that Microsoft will hold in OpenAI’s newly structured for-profit arm. The tech giant has already invested over $13 billion in the company, and discussions are centered on how much of this stake will be adjusted in exchange for continued access to emerging AI technologies beyond 2030.

Additionally, the two companies are revising broader terms of their partnership, originally set out when Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI back in 2019. The updated agreement reflects the evolving nature of their collaboration and the rapid advancement of AI technology.

Microsoft declined to comment on the details of the negotiations, and OpenAI has not yet responded to inquiries from Reuters.

OpenAI has reportedly informed investors that it plans to reduce the share of revenue it gives to Microsoft, as it continues to restructure its financial arrangements. This comes after Microsoft adjusted the terms of its deal with OpenAI earlier this year following its joint venture with Oracle and Japan’s SoftBank Group to build up to $500 billion in new AI data centers across the US.

Regulators the world over are wrestling with how to keep children safe online, as social media is increasingly flooded with violent and disturbing content.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon unveiled draft laws that would force social media companies to verify users were at least 16 years old, or face fines of up to NZ$2 million (US$1.2 million).

The proposed ban was modelled on that of Australia, which sits at the forefront of global efforts to regulate social media.

"This is about protecting our children. It's about making sure social media companies are playing their role in keeping our kids safe," Luxon said.

It was not clear when the legislation would be introduced to parliament, but Luxon said he was hopeful of garnering support across the chamber.

The laws were drafted by Luxon's centre-right National Party, the biggest member in New Zealand's three-way governing coalition.

To be passed they would need the support of Luxon's two other coalition partners.

"Parents are constantly telling us that they are really worried about the impact that social media is having on their children," Luxon said.

"And they say they are really struggling to manage access to social media."

Australia passed landmark laws in November banning under-16s from social media -- one of the world's toughest crackdowns on popular sites such as Facebook, Instagram and X.

The move sparked a fierce backlash from big tech companies who variously described the laws as "rushed", "vague", and "problematic".

The structural issue had become a significant point of contention for the artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer, with major investors pushing for the change to better secure their returns.

AI safety advocates had expressed concerns about pursuing substantial profits from such powerful technology without the oversight of a nonprofit board of directors acting in society's interest rather than for shareholder profits.

"OpenAI is not a normal company and never will be," Altman wrote in an email to staff posted on the company's website.

"We made the decision for the nonprofit to stay in control after hearing from civic leaders and having discussions with the offices of the Attorneys General of California and Delaware," he added.

OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015 and later created a "capped" for-profit entity allowing limited profit-making to attract investors, with cloud computing giant Microsoft becoming the largest early backer.

This arrangement nearly collapsed in 2023 when the board unexpectedly fired Altman. Staff revolted, leading to Altman's reinstatement while those responsible for his dismissal departed.

Alarmed by the instability, investors demanded OpenAI transition to a more traditional for-profit structure within two years.

Under its initial reform plan revealed last year, OpenAI would have become an outright for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC), reassuring investors considering the tens of billions of dollars necessary to fulfill the company's ambitions.

Any status change, however, requires approval from state governments in California and Delaware, where the company is headquartered and registered, respectively.

The plan faced strong criticism from AI safety activists and co-founder Elon Musk, who sued the company he left in 2018, claiming the proposal violated its founding philosophy.

In the revised plan, OpenAI's money-making arm will now be fully open to generate profits but, crucially, will remain under the nonprofit board's supervision.

"We believe this sets us up to continue to make rapid, safe progress and to put great AI in the hands of everyone," Altman said.

- SoftBank sign-off -

OpenAI's major investors will likely have a say in this proposal, with Japanese investment giant SoftBank having made the change to being a for-profit a condition for their massive $30 billion investment announced on March 31.

In an official document, SoftBank stated its total investment could be reduced to $20 billion if OpenAI does not restructure into a for-profit entity by year-end.

The substantial cash injections are needed to cover OpenAI's colossal computing requirements to build increasingly energy-intensive and complex AI models.

The company's original vision did not contemplate "the needs for hundreds of billions of dollars of compute to train models and serve users," Altman said.

SoftBank's contribution in March represented the majority of the $40 billion raised in a funding round that valued the ChatGPT maker at $300 billion, marking the largest capital-raising event ever for a startup.

The company, led by Altman, has become one of Silicon Valley's most successful startups, propelled to prominence in 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, its generative AI chatbot.

AI instruction in government schools, including at kindergarten level, would start from the next academic year, Dubai ruler and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said.

"Our goal is to teach our children a deep understanding of AI from a technical perspective, while also fostering their awareness of the ethics of this new technology," he posted on X on Sunday.

"Our responsibility is to equip our children for a time unlike ours, with conditions different from ours," the Dubai royal added.

The UAE, one of the world's biggest oil exporters, is betting on AI to help it diversify its economy away from crude.

The Gulf monarchy established the world's first AI ministry in 2017 and has a university dedicated to the technology in the capital, Abu Dhabi.

In February, the UAE pledged 30-50 billion euros to build a giant AI data centre in France.