Education on technology

The use of artificial intelligence in the new Marvel superhero series ' Secret Invasion ' has sparked anxiety and anger in Hollywood, at a time when television and film writers are already striking over their uncertain futures. Director Ali Selim revealed in a recent interview that the Disney+ show - a paranoia-rich spy thriller about shape-shifting aliens that stars Samuel L Jackson - used AI as well as human illustrators to generate its opening credits. The abstract sequence in question blends green-hued urban landscapes, spaceships and shadowy human characters, many of whom gradually reveal themselves to be the reptilian extra-terrestrial 'Skrulls' of the series. Selim told the Polygon website that the use of AI was intended to provide a sense of 'foreboding'. "When we reached out to the AI vendors, that was part of it - it just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity, you know? 'Who did this? Who is this?'" he said. ...

Meta Platforms plans to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada once a parliament-approved legislation requiring internet giants to pay news publishers comes into effect, the company said on Thursday. The legislation, known as the Online News Act, was approved by the Senate upper chamber earlier on Thursday and will become law after receiving royal assent from the governor general, a formality. The legislation was proposed after complaints from Canada's media industry, which wants tighter regulation of tech companies to prevent them from elbowing news businesses out of the online advertising market. "Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act taking effect," Meta said in a statement. Facebook had telegraphed such a move for weeks, saying news has no economic value to the company and that its users do not use the platform for news. The act ...

US semiconductor toolmaker Applied Materials will invest $400 million (roughly Rs. 3,300 crore) over four years in a new engineering centre in India, the company said on Thursday. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the company's CEO Gary Dickerson in Washington on Wednesday and invited Applied to strengthen the chip industry in the country. Applied's investment is among a flurry of announcements this week including General Electric's deal to jointly produce jet engines for the military with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and data storage chipmaker Micron's $825 million (roughly Rs. 6,760 crore) investment to build a new factory in India. Modi also met Tesla CEO Elon Musk after which the automaker's top boss said the company will try to be in India "as soon as humanly possible." The new center is expected to be located near the company's existing facility in Bengaluru and is likely to support more than $2 billion (roughly Rs. 16,...

US memory chip firm Micron Technology said on Thursday it would invest up to $825 million (roughly Rs. 6,760 crore)in a new chip assembly and test facility in Gujarat, India, its first factory in the country. Micron said that with support from the Indian central government and from the state of Gujarat, the total investment in the facility will be $2.75 billion (roughly Rs. 22,159 crore). Of that total, 50 percent will come from the Indian central government and 20 percent from the state of Gujarat. Reuters reported earlier this week that India's Cabinet approved the project ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the US, which kicked off on Wednesday. Micron said construction of the new facility in Gujarat is expected to begin in 2023 and the first phase of the project will be operational in late 2024. A second phase of the project is expected to start toward the second half of the decade, it said. The two phases together will create up to 5,000 new direct M...

Apple on Wednesday released the visionOS SDK, a set of tools that will enable developers to build apps for the Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset. The Cupertino company's first spatial computer will go on sale in the US next year and Apple is providing app developers with the tools required to build apps for the device. Unlike other Apple products, the company's upcoming mixed reality headset will use a combination of three different modes of interaction using a person's eyes, hands, and voice. The visionOS SDK will allow developers to tailor their apps around this functionality while making use of the specialised hardware on the device.   The company announced  on the Apple Developer website that the visionOS SDK is now available to developers. In order to create spatial computing apps for the Apple Vision Pro, developers will have to download Xcode 15 Beta 2 that includes the latest visionOS SDK along with a tool to visualise and preview 3D content for the heads...

Honor is likely to launch the Magic V2 book-style foldable smartphone and the Honor X50 smartphone soon. The phones are likely to succeed the Honor Magic V and the Honor X40 , respectively. The foldable Magic V launched in January 2022 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and a 4,750mAh battery with 66W Honor SuperCharge technology support. The X40, on the other hand, powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chipset and backed by a 5,100mAh battery with 40W fast charging support, was released in September 2022. Now, a new leak suggests the launch timeline and key specifications of the succeeding models of the aforementioned handsets. According to a Weibo post by tipster Digital Chat Station (translated from Chinese), the Honor X50 model is likely to launch in China on July 5, followed by the release of the Honor Magic V2 on July 12. The tipster added that the Honor Magic V2 will likely come in two variants either equipped with the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ ...