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Africa, with its internationally recognised musical talent - and growing mobile phone use - is central to Swedish music streamer Spotify's plans to extend its reach to a billion customers.

As African artists such as Nigeria's Burna Boy and South Africa's Black Coffee are streamed across the world, the continent was seen as an obvious choice and is the home to more than a third of the company's 85 new markets.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/african-regional-bloc-loses-92-per-cent-tourism-earnings-due-to-covid-419833">African regional bloc loses 92 per cent tourism earnings due to Covid</a>

The problem is payment on a continent where many people are more likely to have a mobile phone than a bank account.

That means Spotify's first task as it implements a plan announced in February to almost double its footprint is to win over the telecom companies that often equate to banks.

Phiona Okumu, Spotify's head of music for Sub-Saharan Africa, told Reuters the company secured "alternative payment methods", namely M-Pesa, when it moved into Kenya in February.

Owned by Kenya's biggest telecoms operator, Safaricom, M-Pesa is used to send money, save, borrow and make payments for goods and services.

"A lot of African countries are unbanked so that means they don't use credit cards and this is very true for a lot of east African (countries) and in Kenya use M-Pesa for the most part," Okumu said. Elsewhere in Africa, Spotify is seeking other collaborators.

"We are having conversations with the right partners to ensure that we are providing solutions to payment problems that several African consumers face in different parts of the continent," Okumu said.

&nbsp;Chasing the mobile money

Irene Kophen, a Spotify premium user based in Kenya, said she prefers M-Pesa rather than bank cards because she thinks mobile money has made music more accessible.

"Most of us have access to our phones, but not many of us have cards, or bank accounts," the 31-year-old told Reuters.

Costs associated with opening bank accounts, the distance to financial institutions and the difficulty in meeting "Know Your Customers" requirements because of inadequate proof of address&nbsp;have added to the appeal of using phones to pay.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/indian-transport-minister-mulls-a-law-replacing-vehicle-horns-with-indian-musical-instruments-418373">Indian Transport minister mulls a law replacing vehicle horns with Indian musical instruments</a>

"The past few years have seen an emphasis on shifting towards expansion of innovative banking services through mobile technology to capture lower income segments and the unbanked," a spokesperson for South Africa's Absa bank said in an emailed statement.

By 2020, sub-Saharan Africa had 548 million mobile money accounts, up 12 per cent&nbsp;from 2019 - more than any other region in the world, mobile industry body GSMA said.

That has provided banking access in a continent where about 43 per cent&nbsp; of sub-Saharan Africans over the age of 15 had a bank account in 2017, according to the World Bank, which has not provided any more recent data.

Win, win

Spotify's local rivals, such as Kenya-based and Danish-listed Mdundo and Nigeria headquartered Boomplay have also started to build ties with mobile operators.

Such partnerships are based on telcom providers selling music bundles that give customers access to a streaming company's premium service and exclusively-curated music mixes.

The collaboration can benefit both sides by boosting revenue and helping to increase subscribers, but for the streaming companies it is all-but essential. 
&nbsp;

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/african-cinema-could-create-20-mn-jobs-unesco-418269">African cinema could create 20 mn jobs: UNESCO</a>

"It is critical that streaming companies get this right, otherwise they will lose out on revenue from consumers who were willing, but unable, to pay them," Charles Stuart, PwC partner and director of Technology, Media and Telecommunications, said.

For the telecom companies, which also include Airtel Nigeria and Vodacom Tanzania, the partnership can help to achieve customer "loyalty and stickiness" by adding value, Stuart said.

MTN, Africa's largest mobile operator with 48.9 million active mobile money users, is integrating its mobile money service onto its MusicTime app to allow payments, Serigne Dioum, group chief digital and fintech officer of MTN, told Reuters.

"We're talking to players who are music-only players and also we're talking to players who have broader reach in music, video and gaming and who can position our digital services much better," MTN's Dioum said.

Boomplay, which has 60 million monthly active users, has allowed users to pay via mobile platforms such as M-Pesa and Tigo-Pesa in Kenya and Tanzania.

It aims to roll out that option in Francophone countries, Tosin Sorinola, Boomplay's director of artiste and media relations, told Reuters.

Mdundo, which had 8.7 million monthly active users as of June, has three telecom partnerships in Nigeria and Tanzania, and expects one or two more similar deals before the end of this year, Chief Executive Officer Martin Nielsen told Reuters.

"When it comes to payments across Africa our key focus is bundling with telcos because telcos are the ones who have this reach and access to people's pockets," he said.

Africa, with its internationally recognised musical talent - and growing mobile phone use - is central to Swedish music streamer Spotify's plans to extend its reach to a billion customers.

Africa, with its internationally recognised musical talent - and growing mobile phone use - is central to Swedish music streamer Spotify's plans to extend its reach to a billion customers. As African artists such as Nigeria's Burna Boy and South Africa's Black Coffee are streamed across the world, the continent was seen as an obvious choice and is the home to more than a third of the company's 85 new markets. Also Read | African regional bloc loses 92 per cent tourism earnings due to Covid The problem is payment on a continent where many people are more likely to have a mobile phone than a bank account. That means Spotify's first task as it implements a plan announced in February to almost double its footprint is to win over the telecom companies that often equate to banks. Phiona Okumu, Spotify's head of music for Sub-Saharan Africa, told Reuters the company secured "alternative payment methods", namely M-Pesa, when it moved into Kenya in February. Owned by Kenya's biggest telecoms operator, Safaricom, M-Pesa is used to send money, save, borrow and make payments for goods and services. "A lot of African countries are unbanked so that means they don't use credit cards and this is very true for a lot of east African (countries) and in Kenya use M-Pesa for the most part," Okumu said. Elsewhere in Africa, Spotify is seeking other collaborators. "We are having conversations with the right partners to ensure that we are providing solutions to payment problems that several African consumers face in different parts of the continent," Okumu said. Chasing the mobile money Irene Kophen, a Spotify premium user based in Kenya, said she prefers M-Pesa rather than bank cards because she thinks mobile money has made music more accessible. "Most of us have access to our phones, but not many of us have cards, or bank accounts," the 31-year-old told Reuters. Costs associated with opening bank accounts, the distance to financial institutions and the difficulty in meeting "Know Your Customers" requirements because of inadequate proof of address have added to the appeal of using phones to pay. Also Read | Indian Transport minister mulls a law replacing vehicle horns with Indian musical instruments "The past few years have seen an emphasis on shifting towards expansion of innovative banking services through mobile technology to capture lower income segments and the unbanked," a spokesperson for South Africa's Absa bank said in an emailed statement. By 2020, sub-Saharan Africa had 548 million mobile money accounts, up 12 per cent from 2019 - more than any other region in the world, mobile industry body GSMA said. That has provided banking access in a continent where about 43 per cent of sub-Saharan Africans over the age of 15 had a bank account in 2017, according to the World Bank, which has not provided any more recent data. Win, win Spotify's local rivals, such as Kenya-based and Danish-listed Mdundo and Nigeria headquartered Boomplay have also started to build ties with mobile operators. Such partnerships are based on telcom providers selling music bundles that give customers access to a streaming company's premium service and exclusively-curated music mixes. The collaboration can benefit both sides by boosting revenue and helping to increase subscribers, but for the streaming companies it is all-but essential. Also Read | African cinema could create 20 mn jobs: UNESCO "It is critical that streaming companies get this right, otherwise they will lose out on revenue from consumers who were willing, but unable, to pay them," Charles Stuart, PwC partner and director of Technology, Media and Telecommunications, said. For the telecom companies, which also include Airtel Nigeria and Vodacom Tanzania, the partnership can help to achieve customer "loyalty and stickiness" by adding value, Stuart said. MTN, Africa's largest mobile operator with 48.9 million active mobile money users, is integrating its mobile money service onto its MusicTime app to allow payments, Serigne Dioum, group chief digital and fintech officer of MTN, told Reuters. "We're talking to players who are music-only players and also we're talking to players who have broader reach in music, video and gaming and who can position our digital services much better," MTN's Dioum said. Boomplay, which has 60 million monthly active users, has allowed users to pay via mobile platforms such as M-Pesa and Tigo-Pesa in Kenya and Tanzania. It aims to roll out that option in Francophone countries, Tosin Sorinola, Boomplay's director of artiste and media relations, told Reuters. Mdundo, which had 8.7 million monthly active users as of June, has three telecom partnerships in Nigeria and Tanzania, and expects one or two more similar deals before the end of this year, Chief Executive Officer Martin Nielsen told Reuters. "When it comes to payments across Africa our key focus is bundling with telcos because telcos are the ones who have this reach and access to people's pockets," he said.

Music streamers turn to telcos to make Africa pay

Google's email service Gmail is reportedly down in some parts of India&nbsp;with users unable to receive and or send emails.

The development comes after Facebook was down last week as users were also unable to load their Instagram feeds. Whatsapp was also down for several users.

Down Detector which records real-time outages on the internet informed that 68 per cent users were facing issues with Gmail with at least 18 per cent who reported server problems and another 14 per cent users who were facing login issues.

(With inputs from Agencies)

Google's email service Gmail is reportedly down in some parts of India with users unable to receive and or send emails. The development comes after Facebook was down last week as users were also unable to load their Instagram feeds.

Google's email service Gmail is reportedly down in some parts of India with users unable to receive and or send emails. The development comes after Facebook was down last week as users were also unable to load their Instagram feeds. Whatsapp was also down for several users. Down Detector which records real-time outages on the internet informed that 68 per cent users were facing issues with Gmail with at least 18 per cent who reported server problems and another 14 per cent users who were facing login issues. (With inputs from Agencies)

Google's email service Gmail suffers outage in India

A tech body backed by the Australian units of Facebook, Google and Twitter said on Monday it has set up a special committee to adjudicate complaints over misinformation, a day after the government threatened tougher laws over false and defamatory online posts.

The issue of damaging online posts has emerged as a second battlefront between Big Tech and Australia, which last year passed a law to make platforms pay licence fees for content, sparking a temporary Facebook blackout in February.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-makes-an-attempt-to-stop-the-illegal-sale-of-amazon-rainforest-419379">Facebook makes an attempt to stop the illegal sale of Amazon rainforest</a>

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week labelled social media "a coward's palace",&nbsp;while the government said on Sunday it was looking at measures to make social media companies more responsible, including forcing legal liability onto the platforms&nbsp;for the content published on them.

The Digital Industry Group Inc (DIGI), which represents the Australian units of Facebook Inc, Alphabet's Google and Twitter Inc, said its new misinformation oversight subcommittee showed the industry was willing to self-regulate against damaging posts.

The tech giants had already agreed a code of conduct against misinformation, "and we wanted to further strengthen it with independent oversight from experts, and public accountability," DIGI Managing Director Sunita Bose said in a statement.

A three-person "independent complaints sub-committee" would seek to resolve complaints about possible breaches of the code conduct via a public website, DIGI said, but would not take complaints about individual posts.

The industry's code of conduct includes items such as taking action against misinformation affecting public health, which would include the novel coronavirus.

DIGI, which also counts Apple Inc and TikTok as signatories, said it could issue a public statement if a company was found to have violated the code of conduct or revoke its signatory status with the group.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/facebook-instagram-stop-working-yet-again-twitterati-open-bag-of-memes-419307">Facebook, Instagram stop working yet again; Twitterati open bag of memes</a>

Australian communications minister Paul Fletcher, who has been among senior lawmakers promising tougher action against platforms hosting misleading and defamatory content, welcomed the measure.

"I'm pleased that DIGI is announcing an important development to strengthen the way the code will protect Australians from misinformation and disinformation," he said in a statement.

But Reset Australia, an advocate group focused on the influence of technology on democracy, said the oversight panel was "laughable" as it involved no penalties and the code of conduct was optional.

"DIGI's code is not much more than a PR stunt given the negative PR surrounding Facebook in recent weeks," said Reset Australia Director of tech policy Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran in a statement, urging regulation for the industry.

A tech body backed by the Australian units of Facebook, Google and Twitter said on Monday it has set up a special committee to adjudicate complaints over misinformation, a day after the government threatened tougher laws over false and defamatory online posts.

A tech body backed by the Australian units of Facebook, Google and Twitter said on Monday it has set up a special committee to adjudicate complaints over misinformation, a day after the government threatened tougher laws over false and defamatory online posts. The issue of damaging online posts has emerged as a second battlefront between Big Tech and Australia, which last year passed a law to make platforms pay licence fees for content, sparking a temporary Facebook blackout in February. Also Read | Facebook makes an attempt to stop the illegal sale of Amazon rainforest Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week labelled social media "a coward's palace", while the government said on Sunday it was looking at measures to make social media companies more responsible, including forcing legal liability onto the platforms for the content published on them. The Digital Industry Group Inc (DIGI), which represents the Australian units of Facebook Inc, Alphabet's Google and Twitter Inc, said its new misinformation oversight subcommittee showed the industry was willing to self-regulate against damaging posts. The tech giants had already agreed a code of conduct against misinformation, "and we wanted to further strengthen it with independent oversight from experts, and public accountability," DIGI Managing Director Sunita Bose said in a statement. A three-person "independent complaints sub-committee" would seek to resolve complaints about possible breaches of the code conduct via a public website, DIGI said, but would not take complaints about individual posts. The industry's code of conduct includes items such as taking action against misinformation affecting public health, which would include the novel coronavirus. DIGI, which also counts Apple Inc and TikTok as signatories, said it could issue a public statement if a company was found to have violated the code of conduct or revoke its signatory status with the group. Also Read | Facebook, Instagram stop working yet again; Twitterati open bag of memes Australian communications minister Paul Fletcher, who has been among senior lawmakers promising tougher action against platforms hosting misleading and defamatory content, welcomed the measure. "I'm pleased that DIGI is announcing an important development to strengthen the way the code will protect Australians from misinformation and disinformation," he said in a statement. But Reset Australia, an advocate group focused on the influence of technology on democracy, said the oversight panel was "laughable" as it involved no penalties and the code of conduct was optional. "DIGI's code is not much more than a PR stunt given the negative PR surrounding Facebook in recent weeks," said Reset Australia Director of tech policy Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran in a statement, urging regulation for the industry.

Facebook-backed group launches misinformation adjudication panel in Australia

Learning from your mistakes is an important part of growth, but what happens when you repeat same mistake twice in a short period of time? You get trolled on the internet. Facebook learnt it the hard way.<o:p></o:p>

In less than four days after the mega global outage of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, the social media platform went offline once again.<o:p></o:p>

Several users of Facebook and Instagram started complaining about not being able to access the social media platforms yet again. First, the problem was reported for Facebook and Instagram, and then users started reporting delay in page loading etc even in the messaging platforms WhatsApp and Messenger.

<o:p></o:p>

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We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience.
— Facebook (@Facebook) <a href="https://twitter.com/Facebook/status/1446556732977778695?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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"Sincere apologies to anyone who wasn’t able to access our products in the last couple of hours," a Facebook spokesperson told AFP about 21:30 GMT. "We fixed the issue, and everything should be back to normal now."<o:p></o:p>

Facebook claimed that the problem occurred due to a configuration change in its computing platform, which resulted in slower network for several users across the globe.<o:p></o:p>

Earlier, on Monday, Facebook and all its owned social media platforms such Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp had stopped working for hundreds of millions of people around the world for nearly six hours.<o:p></o:p>

Santosh Janardhan, Facebook's vice president of infrastructure, had later apologised to users and explained that the outage was caused by “configuration changes”.<o:p></o:p>

This time, much like the last time, Twitter burst into memes and jokes when Facebook went partially offline once again.

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When Instagram and Facebook are down again 🙃 <a href="https://t.co/0r90S4ShqO">pic.twitter.com/0r90S4ShqO</a>
— B/R Football (@brfootball) <a href="https://twitter.com/brfootball/status/1446560406537965599?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Facebook and Instagram is down again? <a href="https://t.co/Lcr6F3WQ8w">pic.twitter.com/Lcr6F3WQ8w</a>
— Reel James (@itsreeljames) <a href="https://twitter.com/itsreeljames/status/1446662795576160256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2021</a></blockquote>
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They both are never disappointed me🙂<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instadown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instadown</a> <a href="https://t.co/GaMFXcH8gu">pic.twitter.com/GaMFXcH8gu</a>
— Roshni Dewangan (@RoshniDewangan6) <a href="https://twitter.com/RoshniDewangan6/status/1446555078396051456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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People coming to Twitter again to check whether insta is down again <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instagram?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instagram</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instadown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instadown</a> <a href="https://t.co/d9U75ETwqp">pic.twitter.com/d9U75ETwqp</a>
— Khizer (@khiz_7) <a href="https://twitter.com/khiz_7/status/1446549311697915919?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instadown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instadown</a> 
 
Instagram Instagram 
Normally this october <a href="https://t.co/3VGpqDpu6Z">pic.twitter.com/3VGpqDpu6Z</a>
— Shibhhuu (@shibhhuu) <a href="https://twitter.com/shibhhuu/status/1446555291324084224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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NOT AGAIN... Instagram is DOWN?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instadown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instadown</a> <a href="https://t.co/ssJkx3ZXXO">pic.twitter.com/ssJkx3ZXXO</a>
— Moses Nyagota (@moses_nyagota) <a href="https://twitter.com/moses_nyagota/status/1446558766879674373?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Situation right now when <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instadown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instadown</a> 
 
Instagram Twitter <a href="https://t.co/qTT52Ojaar">pic.twitter.com/qTT52Ojaar</a>
— Sakuta🌸 (@Sakutax2) <a href="https://twitter.com/Sakutax2/status/1446557483875635216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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twitter users while instagram goes down <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instadown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instadown</a> <a href="https://t.co/oaxHcQvpFL">pic.twitter.com/oaxHcQvpFL</a>
— ً (@raiderstroII) <a href="https://twitter.com/raiderstroII/status/1446553360736276481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Everyone coming to Twitter to confirm that Instagram is down <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instadown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instadown</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instagramdown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instagramdown</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instagramdownagain?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instagramdownagain</a> <a href="https://t.co/q2yEt1D6lr">pic.twitter.com/q2yEt1D6lr</a>
— cesar (@jebaiting) <a href="https://twitter.com/jebaiting/status/1446555076080783363?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;

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Learning from your mistakes is an important part of growth, but what happens when you repeat same mistake twice in a short period of time? You get trolled on the internet.

Learning from your mistakes is an important part of growth, but what happens when you repeat same mistake twice in a short period of time? You get trolled on the internet. Facebook learnt it the hard way. In less than four days after the mega global outage of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, the social media platform went offline once again. Several users of Facebook and Instagram started complaining about not being able to access the social media platforms yet again. First, the problem was reported for Facebook and Instagram, and then users started reporting delay in page loading etc even in the messaging platforms WhatsApp and Messenger. We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience. — Facebook (@Facebook) October 8, 2021 × "Sincere apologies to anyone who wasn’t able to access our products in the last couple of hours," a Facebook spokesperson told AFP about 21:30 GMT. "We fixed the issue, and everything should be back to normal now." Facebook claimed that the problem occurred due to a configuration change in its computing platform, which resulted in slower network for several users across the globe. Earlier, on Monday, Facebook and all its owned social media platforms such Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp had stopped working for hundreds of millions of people around the world for nearly six hours. Santosh Janardhan, Facebook's vice president of infrastructure, had later apologised to users and explained that the outage was caused by “configuration changes”. This time, much like the last time, Twitter burst into memes and jokes when Facebook went partially offline once again. When Instagram and Facebook are down again 🙃 pic.twitter.com/0r90S4ShqO — B/R Football (@brfootball) October 8, 2021 × Facebook and Instagram is down again? pic.twitter.com/Lcr6F3WQ8w — Reel James (@itsreeljames) October 9, 2021 × They both are never disappointed me🙂#instadown pic.twitter.com/GaMFXcH8gu — Roshni Dewangan (@RoshniDewangan6) October 8, 2021 × People coming to Twitter again to check whether insta is down again #instagram #instadown pic.twitter.com/d9U75ETwqp — Khizer (@khiz_7) October 8, 2021 × #instadown Instagram Instagram Normally this october pic.twitter.com/3VGpqDpu6Z — Shibhhuu (@shibhhuu) October 8, 2021 × NOT AGAIN... Instagram is DOWN?#instadown pic.twitter.com/ssJkx3ZXXO — Moses Nyagota (@moses_nyagota) October 8, 2021 × Situation right now when #instadown Instagram Twitter pic.twitter.com/qTT52Ojaar — Sakuta🌸 (@Sakutax2) October 8, 2021 × twitter users while instagram goes down #instadown pic.twitter.com/oaxHcQvpFL — ً (@raiderstroII) October 8, 2021 × Everyone coming to Twitter to confirm that Instagram is down #instadown #instagramdown #instagramdownagain pic.twitter.com/q2yEt1D6lr — cesar (@jebaiting) October 8, 2021 ×

Facebook, Instagram stop working yet again; Twitterati open bag of memes

Apple on Friday appealed a federal judge's verdict in its legal battle with Fortnite-maker Epic Games over control of the App Store.

Apple is asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to overturn the 185-page ruling by US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers.

The judge ordered Apple to loosen control of its App Store payment options, but said Epic failed to prove any antitrust violations.

Epic last month filed its own appeal.

"We will fight on", Epic chief executive Tim Sweeney tweeted when the company confirmed its plan to contest the verdict.

Apple said in the days after the ruling by Gonzalez-Rogers that it was "very happy" with the decision but had left open the door to appeal.

The companies had opted for a so-called bench trial in which a judge rather that a jury hears the evidence and decides on a verdict.

Epic launched the case aiming to break Apple's grip on the App Store, accusing the iPhone maker of acting like a monopoly in its shop for digital goods or services.

"For me, it is a win for Apple in that the judge clearly said they are not engaging in monopolistic behavior," Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi said after the verdict.

"I don't think it is a problem for Apple from a revenue perspective."

The judge barred Apple from prohibiting developers from including in their apps "external links or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms."

Apple can still mandate that its payment systems is used for in-app transactions.

Apple on Friday appealed a federal judge's verdict in its legal battle with Fortnite-maker Epic Games over control of the App Store. Apple is asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to overturn the 185-page ruling by US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers.

Apple on Friday appealed a federal judge's verdict in its legal battle with Fortnite-maker Epic Games over control of the App Store. Apple is asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to overturn the 185-page ruling by US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers. The judge ordered Apple to loosen control of its App Store payment options, but said Epic failed to prove any antitrust violations. Epic last month filed its own appeal. "We will fight on", Epic chief executive Tim Sweeney tweeted when the company confirmed its plan to contest the verdict. Apple said in the days after the ruling by Gonzalez-Rogers that it was "very happy" with the decision but had left open the door to appeal. The companies had opted for a so-called bench trial in which a judge rather that a jury hears the evidence and decides on a verdict. Epic launched the case aiming to break Apple's grip on the App Store, accusing the iPhone maker of acting like a monopoly in its shop for digital goods or services. "For me, it is a win for Apple in that the judge clearly said they are not engaging in monopolistic behavior," Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi said after the verdict. "I don't think it is a problem for Apple from a revenue perspective." The judge barred Apple from prohibiting developers from including in their apps "external links or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms." Apple can still mandate that its payment systems is used for in-app transactions.

Apple appeals verdict in App Store battle with Epic Games

Amazon's popular live video streaming platform Twitch said Wednesday hackers had broken into its network after reports of exposed confidential company data surfaced online.

The service, where users often stream live video game play, confirmed the break-in on Twitter.

"We can confirm a breach has taken place," Twitch said in post from its verified Twitter account.

"Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this."

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We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available. Thank you for bearing with us.
— Twitch (@Twitch) <a href="https://twitter.com/Twitch/status/1445770441176469512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2021</a></blockquote>
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The statement came after reports emerged that a massive dump of Twitch data had been posted on fringe anonymous message board 4Chan.&nbsp;

A post at 4Chan served up 125 gigabytes of data reported to include Twitch source code, records of payouts to streamers, and a digital video game distribution service being built by Amazon Game Studios.

It did not appear that personal Twitch user data was in the dump, but the extent of the hack was still being investigated.

Google searches for "how to delete Twitch" rocketed eightfold as news of the hack spread, according to marketing analysts firm N. Rich.

"With such a concerning data breach from a platform as widespread and global as Twitch, users are naturally wanting to protect themselves and their data as soon as possible," an N.Rich spokesperson said.

The person who posted the trove of stolen data left a message claiming the break-in was performed to foster competition in video streaming, and because the Twitch community "is a disgusting toxic cesspool," according to media reports.

Users of Twitch, the world's biggest video game streaming site, staged a virtual walkout last month to voice outrage over barrages of racist, sexist and homophobic abuse on the platform.

The phenomenon of "hate raids" -- torrents of abuse -- has seen the platform become increasingly unpleasant many for Twitch streamers who are not white or straight.

A Twitter hashtag, #TwitchDoBetter, has become a magnet for complaints over the past month, largely from female, non-white and LGBTQ players saying that Twitch is failing to stop internet trolls running amok -- all while taking 50 percent of streamers' earnings.

Twitch has maintained that it is working to improve tools for protecting accounts from abuses.

The service is suing two users in US federal court, accusing them of orchestrating the so-called "hate raids."

Amazon's popular live video streaming platform Twitch said Wednesday hackers had broken into its network after reports of exposed confidential company data surfaced online.

Amazon's popular live video streaming platform Twitch said Wednesday hackers had broken into its network after reports of exposed confidential company data surfaced online. The service, where users often stream live video game play, confirmed the break-in on Twitter. "We can confirm a breach has taken place," Twitch said in post from its verified Twitter account. "Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this." We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available. Thank you for bearing with us. — Twitch (@Twitch) October 6, 2021 × The statement came after reports emerged that a massive dump of Twitch data had been posted on fringe anonymous message board 4Chan. A post at 4Chan served up 125 gigabytes of data reported to include Twitch source code, records of payouts to streamers, and a digital video game distribution service being built by Amazon Game Studios. It did not appear that personal Twitch user data was in the dump, but the extent of the hack was still being investigated. Google searches for "how to delete Twitch" rocketed eightfold as news of the hack spread, according to marketing analysts firm N. Rich. "With such a concerning data breach from a platform as widespread and global as Twitch, users are naturally wanting to protect themselves and their data as soon as possible," an N.Rich spokesperson said. The person who posted the trove of stolen data left a message claiming the break-in was performed to foster competition in video streaming, and because the Twitch community "is a disgusting toxic cesspool," according to media reports. Users of Twitch, the world's biggest video game streaming site, staged a virtual walkout last month to voice outrage over barrages of racist, sexist and homophobic abuse on the platform. The phenomenon of "hate raids" -- torrents of abuse -- has seen the platform become increasingly unpleasant many for Twitch streamers who are not white or straight. A Twitter hashtag, #TwitchDoBetter, has become a magnet for complaints over the past month, largely from female, non-white and LGBTQ players saying that Twitch is failing to stop internet trolls running amok -- all while taking 50 percent of streamers' earnings. Twitch has maintained that it is working to improve tools for protecting accounts from abuses. The service is suing two users in US federal court, accusing them of orchestrating the so-called "hate raids."

Streaming site Twitch confirms hack

Google on Wednesday said it is tweaking widely used tools for getting around, shopping and more to let users factor climate change into daily routines.

Google is among the Big Tech firms that have made pledges and investments to reduce the environmental impact of their operations with moves such as making power-hungry data centers carbon neutral.

New features unveiled on Wednesday provide users with ways to help in the effort, whether it be driving routes that result in less exhaust being spewed from cars or shopping online for energy efficient appliances.

Also Read |<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/google-ends-work-on-its-plex-project-even-after-financial-markets-heat-up-417518">&nbsp;Google ends work on its Plex project even after financial markets heat up</a>

"In all these efforts, our goal is to make the sustainable choice an easier choice," Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said while briefing journalists on the latest features.

Artificial intelligence was put to work in Google's free Maps service in the United States to show people the most fuel efficient routes to destinations even if they are not the quickest.

"It defaults to the route that uses less fuel when the estimated time of arrival is similar," Pichai said.

"We believe the feature will have the same impact in the next year as taking over 200,000 cars off the road."

The feature is to be rolled out in Europe in 2022.

Google has also started work on a project to use AI to optimize the efficiency of traffic in cities to reduce time vehicles spend idling at intersections.

Carbon dioxide emission information is being added to a Flights service for booking travel by air.

"We're putting these numbers in context by labeling flights that have significantly higher emissions, and adding a green badge to flights with significantly lower emissions," Google said in a post.

The metrics will also show how much more CO2 is attributed to business or first-class seats, which give passengers more room.

In coming months, Google will start adding details about how eco-friendly hotels are so people can opt for lodging that is kinder to the planet.

Google moves include weaving environmental impact information into its services for financial investing or shopping for appliances, and providing more insights into cost-benefits of electric vehicles.

"Individually, these choices might feel small but when you multiply them together across our products, they equal big transformations for the planet," Pichai said.

"It's going to take all of that to avert the worst consequences of climate change and there's no time to waste."

Google on Wednesday said it is tweaking widely used tools for getting around, shopping and more to let users factor climate change into daily routines. Google is among the Big Tech firms that have made pledges and investments to reduce the environmental impact of their operations with moves such as making power-hungry data centers carbon neutral.

Google on Wednesday said it is tweaking widely used tools for getting around, shopping and more to let users factor climate change into daily routines. Google is among the Big Tech firms that have made pledges and investments to reduce the environmental impact of their operations with moves such as making power-hungry data centers carbon neutral. New features unveiled on Wednesday provide users with ways to help in the effort, whether it be driving routes that result in less exhaust being spewed from cars or shopping online for energy efficient appliances. Also Read | Google ends work on its Plex project even after financial markets heat up "In all these efforts, our goal is to make the sustainable choice an easier choice," Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said while briefing journalists on the latest features. Artificial intelligence was put to work in Google's free Maps service in the United States to show people the most fuel efficient routes to destinations even if they are not the quickest. "It defaults to the route that uses less fuel when the estimated time of arrival is similar," Pichai said. "We believe the feature will have the same impact in the next year as taking over 200,000 cars off the road." The feature is to be rolled out in Europe in 2022. Google has also started work on a project to use AI to optimize the efficiency of traffic in cities to reduce time vehicles spend idling at intersections. Carbon dioxide emission information is being added to a Flights service for booking travel by air. "We're putting these numbers in context by labeling flights that have significantly higher emissions, and adding a green badge to flights with significantly lower emissions," Google said in a post. The metrics will also show how much more CO2 is attributed to business or first-class seats, which give passengers more room. In coming months, Google will start adding details about how eco-friendly hotels are so people can opt for lodging that is kinder to the planet. Google moves include weaving environmental impact information into its services for financial investing or shopping for appliances, and providing more insights into cost-benefits of electric vehicles. "Individually, these choices might feel small but when you multiply them together across our products, they equal big transformations for the planet," Pichai said. "It's going to take all of that to avert the worst consequences of climate change and there's no time to waste."

Google lets users factor climate change into life

Hundreds of millions of people were unable to access&nbsp;Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for more than six hours on Monday, underscoring the world's reliance on platforms owned by the Silicon Valley giant.&nbsp;

But what actually caused the outage? &nbsp;

What does&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;say happened?

In an apologetic blog post, Santosh Janardhan,&nbsp;Facebook's vice president of infrastructure, said that "configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centres caused issues that interrupted this communication".

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/mark-zuckerberg-loses-7-billion-in-hours-as-facebook-plunges-418427">Mark Zuckerberg loses $7 billion in hours as Facebook plunges</a>

Can you explain that in plain English?&nbsp;

Cyber experts think the problem boils down to something called BGP, or Border Gateway Protocol -- the system the internet uses to pick the quickest route to move packets of information around.&nbsp;

Sami Slim of data centre company Telehouse compared BGP to "the internet equivalent of air traffic control".&nbsp;

In the same way that air traffic controllers sometimes make changes to flight schedules, "Facebook&nbsp;did an update of these routes," Slim said.&nbsp;

But this update contained a crucial error.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-services-down-for-users-418225">Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp services down for users</a>

It's not yet clear how or why, but&nbsp;Facebook's routers essentially sent a message to the internet announcing that the company's servers no longer existed.&nbsp;

Why did it take so long to fix the problem?

Experts say&nbsp;Facebook's technical infrastructure is unusually reliant on its own systems -- and that proved disastrous on Monday.&nbsp;

After&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;sent the fateful routing update, its engineers got locked out of the system that would allow them to communicate that the update had, in fact, been an error.&nbsp;So they couldn't fix the problem.&nbsp;

"Normally it's good not to put all your eggs in one basket," said Pierre Bonis of AFNIC, the association that manages domain names in France.&nbsp;

"For security reasons,&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;has had to very strongly concentrate its infrastructure," he said.&nbsp;

"That streamlines things on a daily basis -- but because everything is in the same place, when that place has a problem, nothing works."

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/router-was-bad-says-facebook-after-fb-instagram-whatsapp-go-down-418265">Router was bad, says Facebook after FB, Instagram, WhatsApp go down</a>

The knock-on effects of the shutdown included some&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;employees being unable to even enter their buildings because their security badges no longer worked, further slowing the response.&nbsp;

Is this unprecedented?

Social media outages are not uncommon: Instagram alone has experienced more than 80 in the past year in the United States, according to website builder ToolTester.&nbsp;

This week's&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;outage was rare in its length and scale, however.&nbsp;

There is also a precedent for BGP meddling being at the root of a social media shutdown.

In 2008, when a Pakistani internet service provider was attempting to block YouTube for domestic users, it inadvertently shut down the global website for several hours.&nbsp;

And the outage's impact?&nbsp;

Between&nbsp;Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;Messenger, "billions of users have been impacted by the services being entirely offline", the Downdetector tracking service said.

Facebook, whose shares fell nearly five per cent over the outage, has stressed there is "no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime".

Watch |&nbsp;Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp restored after hours-long outage

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/facebook-instagram-and-whatsapp-restored-after-hours-long-outage-418270/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

But even though it lasted just a few hours, the impact of the shutdown ran deep.&nbsp;

Facebook's services are crucial for many businesses around the world, and users complained of being cut off from their livelihoods.&nbsp;

Facebook&nbsp;accounts are also commonly used to log in to other websites, which faced additional problems due to the company's technical meltdown.&nbsp;

Rival instant messaging services meanwhile reported that they had benefited from the fact that WhatsApp and&nbsp;Facebook&nbsp;Messenger were down.&nbsp;

Telegram went from the 56th most downloaded free app in the US to the fifth, according to monitoring firm SensorTower, while Signal tweeted that "millions" of new users had joined.

And among the more curious side-effects, several domain name registration companies listed&nbsp;Facebook.com as available for purchase.&nbsp;

"There was never any reason to believe&nbsp;Facebook.com would actually be sold as a result, but it's fun to consider how many billions of dollars it could fetch on the open market," said cyber security expert Brian Krebs.

Hundreds of millions of people were unable to access Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for more than six hours on Monday, underscoring the world's reliance on platforms owned by the Silicon Valley giant.

Hundreds of millions of people were unable to access Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for more than six hours on Monday, underscoring the world's reliance on platforms owned by the Silicon Valley giant. But what actually caused the outage? What does Facebook say happened? In an apologetic blog post, Santosh Janardhan, Facebook's vice president of infrastructure, said that "configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centres caused issues that interrupted this communication". Also read | Mark Zuckerberg loses $7 billion in hours as Facebook plunges Can you explain that in plain English? Cyber experts think the problem boils down to something called BGP, or Border Gateway Protocol -- the system the internet uses to pick the quickest route to move packets of information around. Sami Slim of data centre company Telehouse compared BGP to "the internet equivalent of air traffic control". In the same way that air traffic controllers sometimes make changes to flight schedules, "Facebook did an update of these routes," Slim said. But this update contained a crucial error. Also read | Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp services down for users It's not yet clear how or why, but Facebook's routers essentially sent a message to the internet announcing that the company's servers no longer existed. Why did it take so long to fix the problem? Experts say Facebook's technical infrastructure is unusually reliant on its own systems -- and that proved disastrous on Monday. After Facebook sent the fateful routing update, its engineers got locked out of the system that would allow them to communicate that the update had, in fact, been an error. So they couldn't fix the problem. "Normally it's good not to put all your eggs in one basket," said Pierre Bonis of AFNIC, the association that manages domain names in France. "For security reasons, Facebook has had to very strongly concentrate its infrastructure," he said. "That streamlines things on a daily basis -- but because everything is in the same place, when that place has a problem, nothing works." Also read | Router was bad, says Facebook after FB, Instagram, WhatsApp go down The knock-on effects of the shutdown included some Facebook employees being unable to even enter their buildings because their security badges no longer worked, further slowing the response. Is this unprecedented? Social media outages are not uncommon: Instagram alone has experienced more than 80 in the past year in the United States, according to website builder ToolTester. This week's Facebook outage was rare in its length and scale, however. There is also a precedent for BGP meddling being at the root of a social media shutdown. In 2008, when a Pakistani internet service provider was attempting to block YouTube for domestic users, it inadvertently shut down the global website for several hours. And the outage's impact? Between Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, "billions of users have been impacted by the services being entirely offline", the Downdetector tracking service said. Facebook, whose shares fell nearly five per cent over the outage, has stressed there is "no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime". Watch | Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp restored after hours-long outage But even though it lasted just a few hours, the impact of the shutdown ran deep. Facebook's services are crucial for many businesses around the world, and users complained of being cut off from their livelihoods. Facebook accounts are also commonly used to log in to other websites, which faced additional problems due to the company's technical meltdown. Rival instant messaging services meanwhile reported that they had benefited from the fact that WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger were down. Telegram went from the 56th most downloaded free app in the US to the fifth, according to monitoring firm SensorTower, while Signal tweeted that "millions" of new users had joined. And among the more curious side-effects, several domain name registration companies listed Facebook.com as available for purchase. "There was never any reason to believe Facebook.com would actually be sold as a result, but it's fun to consider how many billions of dollars it could fetch on the open market," said cyber security expert Brian Krebs.

Why did Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp shut down?

After a whistleblower came out and outages brought Facebook Inc.'s key programmes down, Mark Zuckerberg's personal worth dropped by over $7 billion in a matter of hours, pushing him down a rung on the list of the world's richest individuals.

The stock of the social media behemoth fell over 5% on Monday, bringing its total loss to nearly 15% since mid-September.

The stock market decline on Monday reduced Zuckerberg's net worth to $120.9 billion, putting him behind Bill Gates on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index at No. 5. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-outage-mark-zuckerberg-apologises-users-have-fun-commenting-418284">Also read | Facebook outage: Mark Zuckerberg apologises, users have fun commenting</a>

According to the index, he has lost over $19 billion in value since September&nbsp;13, when he was worth nearly $140 billion.&nbsp;

The Wall Street Journal began publishing a series of stories on September 13 based on a cache of internal documents.

Revealing that Facebook was aware of a wide range of problems with its products — including Instagram's negative impact on teenage girls' mental health and misinformation about the January 6 Capitol riots — while downplaying the issues in public.

The reports drew the attention of government authorities, and the whistleblower came forward on Monday.&nbsp; 
 
Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/router-was-bad-says-facebook-after-fb-instagram-whatsapp-go-down-418265">Router was bad, says Facebook after FB, Instagram, WhatsApp go down</a>

From a revenue standpoint, the downtime will be costly for Facebook.

Advertising revenues are thought to bring in approximately US$330 million every day for the firm, and the blackout has rendered this aspect of the business entirely inoperable.&nbsp;

$50 billion wiped off Facebook's market capitalisation after global outage

As a result of a global outage of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, Facebook's market capitalization dropped by approximately $50 billion.

According to Fortune, Facebook lost $99.75 million in income during the downtime on Monday, which lasted for more than six hours.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, saw his net worth plummet by more than $6 billion.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

After a whistleblower came out and outages brought Facebook Inc.'s key programmes down, Mark Zuckerberg's personal worth dropped by over $7 billion in a matter of hours, pushing him down a rung on the list of the world's richest individuals.

After a whistleblower came out and outages brought Facebook Inc.'s key programmes down, Mark Zuckerberg's personal worth dropped by over $7 billion in a matter of hours, pushing him down a rung on the list of the world's richest individuals. The stock of the social media behemoth fell over 5% on Monday, bringing its total loss to nearly 15% since mid-September. The stock market decline on Monday reduced Zuckerberg's net worth to $120.9 billion, putting him behind Bill Gates on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index at No. 5. Also read | Facebook outage: Mark Zuckerberg apologises, users have fun commenting According to the index, he has lost over $19 billion in value since September 13, when he was worth nearly $140 billion. The Wall Street Journal began publishing a series of stories on September 13 based on a cache of internal documents. Revealing that Facebook was aware of a wide range of problems with its products — including Instagram's negative impact on teenage girls' mental health and misinformation about the January 6 Capitol riots — while downplaying the issues in public. The reports drew the attention of government authorities, and the whistleblower came forward on Monday. Also Read | Router was bad, says Facebook after FB, Instagram, WhatsApp go down From a revenue standpoint, the downtime will be costly for Facebook. Advertising revenues are thought to bring in approximately US$330 million every day for the firm, and the blackout has rendered this aspect of the business entirely inoperable. $50 billion wiped off Facebook's market capitalisation after global outage As a result of a global outage of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, Facebook's market capitalization dropped by approximately $50 billion. According to Fortune, Facebook lost $99.75 million in income during the downtime on Monday, which lasted for more than six hours. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, saw his net worth plummet by more than $6 billion. (With inputs from agencies)

Mark Zuckerberg loses $7 billion in hours as Facebook plunges

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) market in India is set to reach $7.8 billion by 2025 -- covering hardware, software and services markets -- and growing at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 20.2 per cent, a new report showed on Tuesday.

The businesses in India will accelerate the adoption of both AI-centric and AI non-centric applications for the next five years, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/artificial-intelligence-completes-beethovens-unfinished-tenth-symphony-417463">Artificial intelligence completes Beethoven's unfinished tenth symphony</a>

AI software segment will dominate the market and would grow from $2.8 billion in 2020 at a CAGR of 18.1 per cent by the end of 2025.

"Indian organisations plan to invest in AI to address current business scenarios across functions, such as customer service, human resources (HR), IT automation, security, recommendations, and many more," IDC India Associate Research Director, Cloud and AI, Rishu Sharma said.

"Increasing business resilience and enhancing customer retention are among the top business objectives for using AI by Indian enterprises," Sharma added.

Indian organisations cited the cloud as the preferred deployment location for their AI/ML solutions. About 51 per cent of organisations are processing transactional and social media data through AI/ML solutions in the country.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/spacecows-ai-to-help-rangers-predict-herds-movements-to-save-sacred-sites-and-rock-art-413278">SpaceCows: AI to help rangers predict herds' movements to save sacred sites and rock art</a>

"With data being one of the most crucial components in an AI/ML project, businesses use variety of databases to handle large data volumes for making real time business decisions. Organisations must focus on getting high-quality training data for AI/ML models," AI Senior Market Analyst, Swapnil Shende said.

AI applications forms the largest share of revenue for the AI software category, at more than 52 per cent in 2020.

"The major reasons for AI projects to fail includes disruptive results to current business processes and lack of follow-ups from business units," the report noted.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) market in India is set to reach $7.8 billion by 2025 -- covering hardware, software and services markets -- and growing at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 20.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) market in India is set to reach $7.8 billion by 2025 -- covering hardware, software and services markets -- and growing at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 20.2 per cent, a new report showed on Tuesday. The businesses in India will accelerate the adoption of both AI-centric and AI non-centric applications for the next five years, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). Also Read | Artificial intelligence completes Beethoven's unfinished tenth symphony AI software segment will dominate the market and would grow from $2.8 billion in 2020 at a CAGR of 18.1 per cent by the end of 2025. "Indian organisations plan to invest in AI to address current business scenarios across functions, such as customer service, human resources (HR), IT automation, security, recommendations, and many more," IDC India Associate Research Director, Cloud and AI, Rishu Sharma said. "Increasing business resilience and enhancing customer retention are among the top business objectives for using AI by Indian enterprises," Sharma added. Indian organisations cited the cloud as the preferred deployment location for their AI/ML solutions. About 51 per cent of organisations are processing transactional and social media data through AI/ML solutions in the country. Also read | SpaceCows: AI to help rangers predict herds' movements to save sacred sites and rock art "With data being one of the most crucial components in an AI/ML project, businesses use variety of databases to handle large data volumes for making real time business decisions. Organisations must focus on getting high-quality training data for AI/ML models," AI Senior Market Analyst, Swapnil Shende said. AI applications forms the largest share of revenue for the AI software category, at more than 52 per cent in 2020. "The major reasons for AI projects to fail includes disruptive results to current business processes and lack of follow-ups from business units," the report noted.

India’s Artificial Intelligence market expected to touch $7.8 billion by 2025: Report

Microsoft on Tuesday started rolling out its new operating system Windows 11. The OS is now available as a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs as well as on new PCs that come pre-installed with windows 11 worldwide.

New pre-installed Windows 11 devices have begun rolling out from partners including ASUS, HP, and Lenovo with more coming soon from partners like Acer and Dell.

"With Windows 11, we reimagined the entire user experience to bring you closer to what you love, empower you to produce, and inspire you to create. Windows 11 will provide users a sense of calm and openness while keeping everything that they do secure. We are pleased to bring the new Windows 11 to India," said Rajiv Sodhi, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft India. He was quoted by IANS.

The company says Windows 11 features powerful new experiences whether users are working on a school project, collaborating on a presentation for work, building a new app or creating your next big idea.

The OS comes with redesigned Taskbar icons and Start menu It also adds rounded corners for all program windows and built-in Teams chat.

Windows 11 also includes support for DirectStorage, a feature first introduced on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles.

Introduced in July, Windows 11 comes with a sleeker look and layouts for snapping applications to the screen, more detailed widgets, a revamped Microsoft Store, and support for Android apps.

Microsoft has already revealed basic requirements for running Windows 11 on a PC. It will need a processor that has two or more cores and a clock speed of 1GHz or higher along with 4GB RAM and at least 64GB storage.

The firm recently announced Windows 11 will officially support Intel Core X-series, Xeon W-series, and the Intel Core 7820HQ.

(With inputs from agencies)

Microsoft on Tuesday started rolling out its new operating system Windows 11. The OS is now available as a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs as well as on new PCs that come pre-installed with windows 11 worldwide.

Microsoft on Tuesday started rolling out its new operating system Windows 11. The OS is now available as a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs as well as on new PCs that come pre-installed with windows 11 worldwide. New pre-installed Windows 11 devices have begun rolling out from partners including ASUS, HP, and Lenovo with more coming soon from partners like Acer and Dell. "With Windows 11, we reimagined the entire user experience to bring you closer to what you love, empower you to produce, and inspire you to create. Windows 11 will provide users a sense of calm and openness while keeping everything that they do secure. We are pleased to bring the new Windows 11 to India," said Rajiv Sodhi, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft India. He was quoted by IANS. The company says Windows 11 features powerful new experiences whether users are working on a school project, collaborating on a presentation for work, building a new app or creating your next big idea. The OS comes with redesigned Taskbar icons and Start menu It also adds rounded corners for all program windows and built-in Teams chat. Windows 11 also includes support for DirectStorage, a feature first introduced on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles. Introduced in July, Windows 11 comes with a sleeker look and layouts for snapping applications to the screen, more detailed widgets, a revamped Microsoft Store, and support for Android apps. Microsoft has already revealed basic requirements for running Windows 11 on a PC. It will need a processor that has two or more cores and a clock speed of 1GHz or higher along with 4GB RAM and at least 64GB storage. The firm recently announced Windows 11 will officially support Intel Core X-series, Xeon W-series, and the Intel Core 7820HQ. (With inputs from agencies)

Microsoft starts rolling out Windows 11 to PCs across the world

Users claimed that popular social media platforms WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook were down in various regions of the world on Monday evening.

Around 9 pm Indian time, users reported on Twitter that the prominent social networking and communication sites were unreachable.&nbsp; 
 
"We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with WhatsApp at the moment. We’re working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible, " said WhatsApp in an official statement. 
 
Facebook owns all these four most downloaded applications: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.&nbsp; 
 
Facebook confirmed the issue on its Twitter feed, and said it's "working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible."

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We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
— Facebook (@Facebook) <a href="https://twitter.com/Facebook/status/1445061804636479493?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Bear with us, we’re on it! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instagramdown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instagramdown</a>
— Instagram Comms (@InstagramComms) <a href="https://twitter.com/InstagramComms/status/1445062531932835841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
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Outage tracking website DownDetector shows complaints of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp not working.

Users have taken to Twitter to complain that they are not able to use the services.

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I wonder how hard Twitter usage spikes when Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all go down at once
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) <a href="https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/1445056411940048897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2021</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;

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seems like chaos as facebook, whatsapp and instagram go down while twitter is the hottest things to verify this <a href="https://t.co/MD5zgvjqyE">pic.twitter.com/MD5zgvjqyE</a>
— David Borg (@Thraher_o1) <a href="https://twitter.com/Thraher_o1/status/1445056336455249923?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Us whenever Instagram WhatsApp or Facebook is down, double checking we’re not alone lmao <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/instagramdown?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#instagramdown</a> <a href="https://t.co/qcTx5v1Dy3">pic.twitter.com/qcTx5v1Dy3</a>
— 🥂✨ (@winetilldawn) <a href="https://twitter.com/winetilldawn/status/1445056211444027401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2021</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;

Users claimed that popular social media platforms WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook were down in various regions of the world on Monday evening. Around 9 pm Indian time, users reported on Twitter that the prominent social networking and communication sites were unreachable.

Users claimed that popular social media platforms WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook were down in various regions of the world on Monday evening. Around 9 pm Indian time, users reported on Twitter that the prominent social networking and communication sites were unreachable. "We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with WhatsApp at the moment. We’re working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible, " said WhatsApp in an official statement. Facebook owns all these four most downloaded applications: Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Facebook confirmed the issue on its Twitter feed, and said it's "working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible." We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience. — Facebook (@Facebook) October 4, 2021 × Instagram and friends are having a little bit of a hard time right now, and you may be having issues using them. Bear with us, we’re on it! #instagramdown — Instagram Comms (@InstagramComms) October 4, 2021 × Outage tracking website DownDetector shows complaints of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp not working. Users have taken to Twitter to complain that they are not able to use the services. I wonder how hard Twitter usage spikes when Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all go down at once — Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) October 4, 2021 × seems like chaos as facebook, whatsapp and instagram go down while twitter is the hottest things to verify this pic.twitter.com/MD5zgvjqyE — David Borg (@Thraher_o1) October 4, 2021 × Us whenever Instagram WhatsApp or Facebook is down, double checking we’re not alone lmao #instagramdown pic.twitter.com/qcTx5v1Dy3 — 🥂✨ (@winetilldawn) October 4, 2021 ×

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp services down for users

Every year at this time, we sing the same song. The new iPhones hit the market and people gasp in amazement, not because of the features, but mostly because of the price tag. So before I dive into my first impressions of the new iPhone 13 Pro, lets get the price out of the way so we can all gasp and gulp down a big glass of water.

The new iPhones are premium and will probably cost you a holiday or even an EMI installment for your new car. The iPhone 13 Pro starts at Rs. 1,19,900 with 128GB of storage. Surprisingly, I have heard people willing to dole out more money for storage this year so you can also opt for the 256GB variant for Rs 1,39,900 and Rs 1,59,900 for 512GB. And if you really want to indulge and dismiss all storage concerns for a lifetime, Apple is also offering a whopping 1TB of storage at a price tag of Rs 1,79,900.

Alright, now that we've all pondered over all the things we could do INSTEAD of buying the iPhone 13, lets unbox this beast.

Unboxing the iPhone

You know when you spend more than a lakh of rupees on a smartphone, you expect for the red carpet to be rolled out, people to serenade you or at the very least, a box with all the bells and whistles. Well, that's not going to happen here.&nbsp;

While the iPhone looks stunning in itself, the box gets leaner and more compact this year. All you get is the iPhone of course, a USB Type-C to lightning cable, an Apple sticker and a pin to change sim cards. So those upgrading after the iPhone 11, this might come as a rude shock.

Design: First look

<img alt="iPhone 13 Pro" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="3fadf08f-6740-4ace-8448-0cc731e17145" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/pjimage%20-%202021-10-02T174524.824.jpg" />

Apple introduces a new signature colour this year: the elegant Sierra Blue. The popularity of this colour is evident already, with influencers, celebrities and India's upwardly mobile vying for it and how. Apple claims to have developed a new “nanometre-scale” ceramic deposition process to create the Sierra Blue finish.

Some are calling it a marketing gimmick but as always with Apple, the proof is in the pudding. Open your Instagram and you'll see reels and videos with different age groups salivating over this new colour. Many have dialled their distant relatives in the US to get their hands on it should the Indian stocks run out!

What I personally love is the matte, frosted look that the phone has with gold accents on the sides. Apple says these bands are surgical-grade stainless steel so perhaps makes the iPhone 13 more sturdy? We'll find out.

The gold band with the matte effects on the rear makes for the perfect balance of subtle and bling and will appeal to most Apple users. The irony though, is that most will cover it up with a protective leather cover because god forbid, it slips from nimble fingers!

But the big question is, is it any different from the already popular iPhone 12 Pro? The differences as always, are in the camera and processor so will be hard to catch by the untrained eye.

Is it too heavy for one-hand use or to stuff into a pocket? The Pro Max weighs more than 235 grams and could take a while to get used to, at least for the uninitiated. I have been using the 13 Pro and it's easy to use with one hand.

Display 
&nbsp; 
Lets talk about the "notch" because it still exists and that is perhaps the biggest bone of contention for most Apple users. The iPhone 13 comes with a narrower notch. I can see it, you can see it, we all can see it. Does it bother me? No. Will it bother loyal Apple users, probably not. What I am loving is the 120Hz ProMotion display which makes the iPhone a delight to watch content on.

The Pro comes with 6.1-inch OLED panel while the bigger sibling, Pro Max, comes with 6.7-inch OLED display. Apple claims it's the brightest display ever on the iPhone with up to 25 percent higher outdoor brightness, at 1000 nits. We'll analyse the full performance in our in-depth review coming soon.

Performance and battery

The A15 Bionic chipset is a beast. In my three days with the iPhone 13 Pro, I hardly noticed any lag or compromise in performance. So with the iPhone 13, what you have in your hands is a faster iPhone even if you are using the 12 generation.

It's all about camera

<img alt="iPhone " data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="b52cc2e7-610f-4d8e-859e-13e1f04e0108" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/pjimage%20-%202021-10-02T174025.047.jpg" />

Anyone who invests in an iPhone does it because they are invested in the Apple ecosystem. A new buyer spends oodles for Apple's camera features. The iPhone 13 Pro introduces something known as "Photographic styles" which essentially helps you customise colours and tones in a photo even before clicking it.

The video feature gets its own portrait mode through the "Cinematic Video" mode which uses artificial intelligence to focus on a subject. I went to town taking videos of my hyper-active toddler and I have to say, was impressed with the results. Apple has played a smart move here -- in the age of social media, newbie video creators and influencers will love this feature.

Apple calls the cameras on this iPhone the most advanced ever with new sensors and lenses for all three rear cameras. In my time with the phone, the images have been true-to-life, vibrant with great detailing. 
With the new iOS 15 update, it all ties in nicely together. There's a lot to be said about the night shots and we'll explore all that in our detailed review coming up soon.

We'll try and answer the age-old question, is the new iPhone worth the hype?

Every year at this time, we sing the same song. The new iPhones hit the market and people gasp in amazement, not because of the features, but mostly because of the price tag.

Every year at this time, we sing the same song. The new iPhones hit the market and people gasp in amazement, not because of the features, but mostly because of the price tag. So before I dive into my first impressions of the new iPhone 13 Pro, lets get the price out of the way so we can all gasp and gulp down a big glass of water. The new iPhones are premium and will probably cost you a holiday or even an EMI installment for your new car. The iPhone 13 Pro starts at Rs. 1,19,900 with 128GB of storage. Surprisingly, I have heard people willing to dole out more money for storage this year so you can also opt for the 256GB variant for Rs 1,39,900 and Rs 1,59,900 for 512GB. And if you really want to indulge and dismiss all storage concerns for a lifetime, Apple is also offering a whopping 1TB of storage at a price tag of Rs 1,79,900. Alright, now that we've all pondered over all the things we could do INSTEAD of buying the iPhone 13, lets unbox this beast. Unboxing the iPhone You know when you spend more than a lakh of rupees on a smartphone, you expect for the red carpet to be rolled out, people to serenade you or at the very least, a box with all the bells and whistles. Well, that's not going to happen here. While the iPhone looks stunning in itself, the box gets leaner and more compact this year. All you get is the iPhone of course, a USB Type-C to lightning cable, an Apple sticker and a pin to change sim cards. So those upgrading after the iPhone 11, this might come as a rude shock. Design: First look Apple introduces a new signature colour this year: the elegant Sierra Blue. The popularity of this colour is evident already, with influencers, celebrities and India's upwardly mobile vying for it and how. Apple claims to have developed a new “nanometre-scale” ceramic deposition process to create the Sierra Blue finish. Some are calling it a marketing gimmick but as always with Apple, the proof is in the pudding. Open your Instagram and you'll see reels and videos with different age groups salivating over this new colour. Many have dialled their distant relatives in the US to get their hands on it should the Indian stocks run out! What I personally love is the matte, frosted look that the phone has with gold accents on the sides. Apple says these bands are surgical-grade stainless steel so perhaps makes the iPhone 13 more sturdy? We'll find out. The gold band with the matte effects on the rear makes for the perfect balance of subtle and bling and will appeal to most Apple users. The irony though, is that most will cover it up with a protective leather cover because god forbid, it slips from nimble fingers! But the big question is, is it any different from the already popular iPhone 12 Pro? The differences as always, are in the camera and processor so will be hard to catch by the untrained eye. Is it too heavy for one-hand use or to stuff into a pocket? The Pro Max weighs more than 235 grams and could take a while to get used to, at least for the uninitiated. I have been using the 13 Pro and it's easy to use with one hand. Display Lets talk about the "notch" because it still exists and that is perhaps the biggest bone of contention for most Apple users. The iPhone 13 comes with a narrower notch. I can see it, you can see it, we all can see it. Does it bother me? No. Will it bother loyal Apple users, probably not. What I am loving is the 120Hz ProMotion display which makes the iPhone a delight to watch content on. The Pro comes with 6.1-inch OLED panel while the bigger sibling, Pro Max, comes with 6.7-inch OLED display. Apple claims it's the brightest display ever on the iPhone with up to 25 percent higher outdoor brightness, at 1000 nits. We'll analyse the full performance in our in-depth review coming soon. Performance and battery The A15 Bionic chipset is a beast. In my three days with the iPhone 13 Pro, I hardly noticed any lag or compromise in performance. So with the iPhone 13, what you have in your hands is a faster iPhone even if you are using the 12 generation. It's all about camera Anyone who invests in an iPhone does it because they are invested in the Apple ecosystem. A new buyer spends oodles for Apple's camera features. The iPhone 13 Pro introduces something known as "Photographic styles" which essentially helps you customise colours and tones in a photo even before clicking it. The video feature gets its own portrait mode through the "Cinematic Video" mode which uses artificial intelligence to focus on a subject. I went to town taking videos of my hyper-active toddler and I have to say, was impressed with the results. Apple has played a smart move here -- in the age of social media, newbie video creators and influencers will love this feature. Apple calls the cameras on this iPhone the most advanced ever with new sensors and lenses for all three rear cameras. In my time with the phone, the images have been true-to-life, vibrant with great detailing. With the new iOS 15 update, it all ties in nicely together. There's a lot to be said about the night shots and we'll explore all that in our detailed review coming up soon. We'll try and answer the age-old question, is the new iPhone worth the hype?

iPhone 13 Pro: First impressions

Rolls-Royce on Wednesday announced its first fully electric car, the "Spectre", will be available in late 2023, the luxury BMW group brand adding that all its vehicles will be electric by 2030.

"This is not a prototype. It’s the real thing, it will be tested in plain sight and our clients will take first deliveries of the car in the fourth quarter of 2023," said CEO Torsten Mueller-Otvoes.

"I am proud to announce that Rolls-Royce is to begin the on-road testing programme for an extraordinary new product that will elevate the global all-electric car revolution and create the first -– and finest -– super-luxury product of its type," he added.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/business-economy/lucid-to-start-deliveries-of-electric-cars-with-range-exceeding-teslas-in-october-416769">Lucid to start deliveries of electric cars with range exceeding Tesla's in October</a>

Mueller-Otvoes noted that Charles Rolls (co-founder with Henry Royce) had "truly prophesied an electrified future for automobiles. In April 1900 he experienced an early electric motor car named the Columbia and declared its electric drive to be ideal".

With the increasing switch over to electric, "now is the time to change the course of the future of luxury," he added, with Rolls Royce seeing electric propulsion as perfectly adapted to the brand's ambitions.

The group had already presented two electric-powered prototype models.

In a video Rolls showed off the Spectre coupe, complete with the marque's trademark "Spirit of Ecstasy" bonnet sculpture. The Spectre is based on the aluminium chassis of its 2017 Phantom limousine launched in 2017.

Rolls-Royce on Wednesday announced its first fully electric car, the "Spectre", will be available in late 2023, the luxury BMW group brand adding that all its vehicles will be electric by 2030.

Rolls-Royce on Wednesday announced its first fully electric car, the "Spectre", will be available in late 2023, the luxury BMW group brand adding that all its vehicles will be electric by 2030. "This is not a prototype. It’s the real thing, it will be tested in plain sight and our clients will take first deliveries of the car in the fourth quarter of 2023," said CEO Torsten Mueller-Otvoes. "I am proud to announce that Rolls-Royce is to begin the on-road testing programme for an extraordinary new product that will elevate the global all-electric car revolution and create the first -– and finest -– super-luxury product of its type," he added. Also Read | Lucid to start deliveries of electric cars with range exceeding Tesla's in October Mueller-Otvoes noted that Charles Rolls (co-founder with Henry Royce) had "truly prophesied an electrified future for automobiles. In April 1900 he experienced an early electric motor car named the Columbia and declared its electric drive to be ideal". With the increasing switch over to electric, "now is the time to change the course of the future of luxury," he added, with Rolls Royce seeing electric propulsion as perfectly adapted to the brand's ambitions. The group had already presented two electric-powered prototype models. In a video Rolls showed off the Spectre coupe, complete with the marque's trademark "Spirit of Ecstasy" bonnet sculpture. The Spectre is based on the aluminium chassis of its 2017 Phantom limousine launched in 2017.

Rolls Royce announces fully electric car for late 2023

Amazon announced a dog-like household robot called Astro and also a deal with Disney to imbue its voice-controlled tech in resorts. The company is taking steps to make its virtual assistant Alexa bigger part of consumers' lives.&nbsp;

The robot is designed to monitor home, set up routines and reminders. It can also play music and TV shows as it moved around the house.

The device has digital eyes on a rotating screen mounted on wheels.

<img alt="Amazon Astro" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="0c93d9ca-866d-49ea-9ffc-faa1a278f97c" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/2021-09-28T205953Z_1_LYNXMPEH8R16X_RTROPTP_4_AMAZON-COM-DEVICES.JPG" />

Among other launches from Amazon were smart thermostat, smart display Echo Show 15 and a new health-tracking band called Halo View.

The Echo Show 15 can be mounted on a wall and is powered with AZ2 Neural Edge, a processor that helps users personalize the screen.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/winged-microchip-us-scientists-create-smallest-ever-human-made-flying-structure-416477">Winged microchip: US scientists create smallest-ever human-made flying structure</a> 
 
In its push to appeal to the next generation of customers - kids - the company introduced Amazon Glow, a gadget for playing games, reading or drawing while on a video call.

In its partnership with Disney, it will launch an Alexa-powered voice assistant at Disney's theme park hotels, along with a paid feature that lets customers interact with Disney characters at home.

The feature is expected to launch next year and will let users interact with Disney characters with the 'Hey, Disney!' voice command.

(With inputs from agencies)

Amazon announced a dog-like household robot called Astro and also a deal with Disney to imbue its voice-controlled tech in resorts. The company is taking steps to make its virtual assistant Alexa bigger part of consumers' lives.

Amazon announced a dog-like household robot called Astro and also a deal with Disney to imbue its voice-controlled tech in resorts. The company is taking steps to make its virtual assistant Alexa bigger part of consumers' lives. The robot is designed to monitor home, set up routines and reminders. It can also play music and TV shows as it moved around the house. The device has digital eyes on a rotating screen mounted on wheels. Among other launches from Amazon were smart thermostat, smart display Echo Show 15 and a new health-tracking band called Halo View. The Echo Show 15 can be mounted on a wall and is powered with AZ2 Neural Edge, a processor that helps users personalize the screen. Also Read | Winged microchip: US scientists create smallest-ever human-made flying structure In its push to appeal to the next generation of customers - kids - the company introduced Amazon Glow, a gadget for playing games, reading or drawing while on a video call. In its partnership with Disney, it will launch an Alexa-powered voice assistant at Disney's theme park hotels, along with a paid feature that lets customers interact with Disney characters at home. The feature is expected to launch next year and will let users interact with Disney characters with the 'Hey, Disney!' voice command. (With inputs from agencies)

Amazon launches dog-like robot that can monitor your home

Taiwan's government on Wednesday proposed tightening a law to prevent China from stealing key technology, reflecting concerns in Taipei that Beijing is stepping up espionage efforts against the island. 
 
Taiwan is home to a thriving and world-leading semiconductor industry, used in everything from fighter jets to cars, and the government has long worried about Chinese efforts to copy that success, including through industrial espionage, poaching talent and other methods. 
 
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said it was proposing a revision to an existing law governing China relations that would require people getting government money for certain technology to seek permission before going to China. 
 
There would be fines of up to T$10 million ($360,555) for those who breach the law. 
 
The council did not specify what constitutes "national core technology" or how the government defines "certain subsidies" provided by them, saying it will seek help from the technology ministry and further amend the regulations. 
 
A senior Taiwan government official familiar with the matter told Reuters last month the revision was meant to protect the island`s manufacturing technology for advanced chips, which industry experts say is generations ahead of China`s. 
 
Taiwan's parliament will need to pass the revisions. 
 
Four lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party proposed in April&nbsp;amending the commercial secrets law to widen the scope of what is considered a secret and toughen penalties. 
 
Taiwan blames China for most cases of industrial espionage by foreign forces discovered in recent years. 
 
Taiwan has been particularly concerned by Chinese attempts to boost its semiconductor industry by "poaching" Taiwanese talent.

Taiwan's government on Wednesday proposed tightening a law to prevent China from stealing key technology, reflecting concerns in Taipei that Beijing is stepping up espionage efforts against the island.

Taiwan's government on Wednesday proposed tightening a law to prevent China from stealing key technology, reflecting concerns in Taipei that Beijing is stepping up espionage efforts against the island. Taiwan is home to a thriving and world-leading semiconductor industry, used in everything from fighter jets to cars, and the government has long worried about Chinese efforts to copy that success, including through industrial espionage, poaching talent and other methods. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said it was proposing a revision to an existing law governing China relations that would require people getting government money for certain technology to seek permission before going to China. There would be fines of up to T$10 million ($360,555) for those who breach the law. The council did not specify what constitutes "national core technology" or how the government defines "certain subsidies" provided by them, saying it will seek help from the technology ministry and further amend the regulations. A senior Taiwan government official familiar with the matter told Reuters last month the revision was meant to protect the island`s manufacturing technology for advanced chips, which industry experts say is generations ahead of China`s. Taiwan's parliament will need to pass the revisions. Four lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party proposed in April amending the commercial secrets law to widen the scope of what is considered a secret and toughen penalties. Taiwan blames China for most cases of industrial espionage by foreign forces discovered in recent years. Taiwan has been particularly concerned by Chinese attempts to boost its semiconductor industry by "poaching" Taiwanese talent.

Taiwan proposes tightening law to prevent China stealing technology

A music company paid $74,000 for the non-fungible token (NFT) of the Side Eyeing Chloe meme, which shows a two-year-old girl. 3F Music, a Dubai-based music production firm, purchased it.&nbsp;

In 2013, a young girl became famous after a meme depicting her negative side-eyeing reaction to her mother's announcement of a vacation to Disneyland went viral on social media.&nbsp;

Since then, Chloe Clem, now 10, was known by all as ‘side-eyeing Chloe’. However, her mother Katie has now decided to tap into her popularity by auctioning the meme as a non-fungible token (NFT) for thousands of dollars. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/fake-banksy-nft-sold-for-ps244k-through-artists-website-410517">Also read | Fake Banksy NFT sold for £244k through artist's website</a>

Clem has remained a social media star with over 500,000 Instagram followers and has even reportedly featured in a Google advertisement in Brazil.

In September 2013, &nbsp;Katie uploaded a video featuring her two daughters reacting to the Disneyland surprise.

NFTs are often purchased and sold in exchange for cryptocurrencies. Buyers do not own the copyright on the image that the digital certificate depicts, despite having the certificate.&nbsp;

These transaction records are permanent, have been validated several times, and can not be erased or changed because NFTs are enabled by blockchain.

Each non-fungible token has a distinct identity.As a result, no two digital entities are permitted to share a token.

In March, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sold his first-ever tweet to a Malaysian businessman for $2.9 million.

A woman who appeared in the film ‘Disaster Girl' sold it for $500,000 in April of this year.Another image, dubbed the "Overly Attached Girlfriend Meme," sold for $411,000.&nbsp;

NFT transactions, on the other hand, have their own repercussions.

There have recently been environmental concerns regarding the long-term viability of NFTs, as they demand enormous amounts of energy to mine coins, process transactions, and maintain the blockchain.

(With inputs from agencies)

A music company paid $74,000 for the non-fungible token (NFT) of the Side Eyeing Chloe meme, which shows a two-year-old girl. 3F Music, a Dubai-based music production firm, purchased it.

A music company paid $74,000 for the non-fungible token (NFT) of the Side Eyeing Chloe meme, which shows a two-year-old girl. 3F Music, a Dubai-based music production firm, purchased it. In 2013, a young girl became famous after a meme depicting her negative side-eyeing reaction to her mother's announcement of a vacation to Disneyland went viral on social media. Since then, Chloe Clem, now 10, was known by all as ‘side-eyeing Chloe’. However, her mother Katie has now decided to tap into her popularity by auctioning the meme as a non-fungible token (NFT) for thousands of dollars. Also read | Fake Banksy NFT sold for £244k through artist's website Clem has remained a social media star with over 500,000 Instagram followers and has even reportedly featured in a Google advertisement in Brazil. In September 2013, Katie uploaded a video featuring her two daughters reacting to the Disneyland surprise. NFTs are often purchased and sold in exchange for cryptocurrencies. Buyers do not own the copyright on the image that the digital certificate depicts, despite having the certificate. These transaction records are permanent, have been validated several times, and can not be erased or changed because NFTs are enabled by blockchain. Each non-fungible token has a distinct identity.As a result, no two digital entities are permitted to share a token. In March, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sold his first-ever tweet to a Malaysian businessman for $2.9 million. A woman who appeared in the film ‘Disaster Girl' sold it for $500,000 in April of this year.Another image, dubbed the "Overly Attached Girlfriend Meme," sold for $411,000. NFT transactions, on the other hand, have their own repercussions. There have recently been environmental concerns regarding the long-term viability of NFTs, as they demand enormous amounts of energy to mine coins, process transactions, and maintain the blockchain. (With inputs from agencies)

NFT of ‘side-eyeing Chloe’ meme’s original image sells for a whopping amount

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, signed off last month on a new initiative code-named Project Amplify.

The effort, which was hatched at an internal meeting in January, had a specific purpose: to use Facebook’s News Feed, the site’s most important digital real estate, to show people positive stories about the social network.

The idea was that pushing pro-Facebook news items, some of them written by the company,&nbsp;would improve its image in the eyes of its users, three people with knowledge of the effort said. But the move was sensitive because Facebook had not previously positioned the News Feed as a place where it burnished its own reputation. Several executives at the meeting were shocked by the proposal, one attendee said.&nbsp;

Project Amplify punctuated a series of decisions that Facebook has made this year to aggressively reshape its image. Since that January meeting, the company has begun a multipronged effort to change its narrative by distancing Zuckerberg from scandals, reducing outsiders’ access to internal data, burying a potentially negative report about its content, and increasing its own advertising to showcase its brand.

The moves amount to a broad shift in strategy. For years, Facebook confronted crisis after crisis over privacy, misinformation, and hate speech on its platform by publicly apologizing. Zuckerberg personally took responsibility for Russian interference on the site during the 2016 presidential election and has loudly stood up for free speech online. Facebook also promised transparency into the way that it operated.

But the drumbeat of criticism on issues as varied as racist speech and vaccine misinformation has not relented. Disgruntled Facebook employees have added to the furor by speaking out against their employer and leaking internal documents. Last week, The Wall Street Journal published articles based on such documents that showed Facebook knew about many of the harms it was causing.

So Facebook executives, concluding that their methods had done little to quell criticism or win supporters, decided early this year to go on the offensive, said six current and former employees, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal.

“They’re realizing that no one else is going to come to their defense, so they need to do it and say it themselves,” said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director.

The changes have involved Facebook executives from its marketing, communications, policy and integrity teams. Alex Schultz, a 14-year company veteran who was named chief marketing officer last year, has also been influential in the image reshaping effort, said five people who worked with him. But at least one of the decisions was driven by Zuckerberg, and all were approved by him, three of the people said.

Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesperson, denied that the company had changed its approach.

“People deserve to know the steps we’re taking to address the different issues facing our company — and we’re going to share those steps widely,” he said in a statement.

For years, Facebook executives have chafed at how their company appeared to receive more scrutiny than Google and Twitter, said current and former employees. They attributed that attention to Facebook’s leaving itself more exposed with its apologies and providing access to internal data, the people said.

So in January, executives held a virtual meeting and broached the idea of a more aggressive defense, one attendee said. The group discussed using the News Feed to promote positive news about the company, as well as running ads that linked to favorable articles about Facebook. They also debated how to define a pro-Facebook story, two participants said.

That same month, the communications team discussed ways for executives to be less conciliatory when responding to crises and decided there would be less apologizing, said two people with knowledge of the plan.

Zuckerberg, who had become intertwined with policy issues including the 2020 election, also wanted to recast himself as an innovator, the people said. In January, the communications team circulated a document with a strategy for distancing Zuckerberg from scandals, partly by focusing his Facebook posts and media appearances on new products, they said.

The Information, a tech news site, previously reported on the document.

The impact was immediate. On Jan. 11, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer — and not Zuckerberg — told Reuters that the storming of the U.S. Capitol a week earlier had little to do with Facebook. In July, when President Joe Biden said the social network was “killing people” by spreading COVID-19 misinformation, Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president for integrity, disputed the characterization in a blog post and pointed out that the White House had missed its coronavirus vaccination goals.

“Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed,” Rosen wrote.

Zuckerberg’s personal Facebook and Instagram accounts soon changed. Rather than addressing corporate controversies, Zuckerberg’s posts have recently featured a video of himself riding across a lake carrying an American flag, with messages about new virtual reality and hardware devices. (After this article, which described Zuckerberg as riding an electric surfboard, was published, he wrote on Facebook that it was actually “a hydrofoil that I’m pumping with my own legs.”)

Facebook also started cutting back the availability of data that allowed academics and journalists to study how the platform worked. In April, the company told its team behind CrowdTangle, a tool that provides data on the engagement and popularity of Facebook posts, that it was being broken up. While the tool still exists, the people who worked on it were moved to other teams.

Part of the impetus came from Schultz, who had grown frustrated with news coverage that used CrowdTangle data to show that Facebook was spreading misinformation, said two people involved in the discussions.

For academics who relied on CrowdTangle, it was a blow. Cameron Hickey, a misinformation researcher at the National Conference on Citizenship, a nonprofit focused on civic engagement, said he was “particularly angry” because he felt the CrowdTangle team was being punished for giving an unfiltered view of engagement on Facebook.

Schultz argued that Facebook should publish its own information about the site’s most popular content rather than supply access to tools like CrowdTangle, two people said. So in June, the company compiled a report on Facebook’s most-viewed posts for the first three months of 2021.

But Facebook did not release the report. After the policy communications team discovered that the top-viewed link for the period was a news story with a headline that suggested a doctor had died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, they feared the company would be chastised for contributing to vaccine hesitancy, according to internal emails reviewed by The New York Times.

A day before the report was supposed to be published, Schultz was part of a group that voted to shelve the document, according to the emails. He later posted an internal message about his role at Facebook, which was reviewed by The Times, saying, “I do care about protecting the company’s reputation, but I also care deeply about rigor and transparency.”

Facebook also worked to stamp out employee leaks. In July, the communications team shuttered comments on an internal forum that was used for companywide announcements. “OUR ONE REQUEST: PLEASE DON’T LEAK,” read a post about the change.

At the same time, Facebook ramped up its marketing. During the Olympics this summer, the company paid for television spots with the tagline “We change the game when we find each other,” to promote how it fostered communities. In the first half of this year, Facebook spent a record $6.1 billion on marketing and sales, up more than 8% from a year earlier, according to a recent earnings report.

Weeks later, the company further reduced the ability of academics to conduct research on it when it disabled the Facebook accounts and pages of a group of New York University researchers. The researchers had created a feature for web browsers that allowed them to see users’ Facebook activity, which 16,000 people had consented to use. The resulting data had led to studies showing that misleading political ads had thrived on Facebook during the 2020 election and that users engaged more with right-wing misinformation than many other types of content.

In a blog post, Facebook said the NYU researchers had violated rules around collecting user data, citing a privacy agreement it had originally struck with the Federal Trade Commission in 2012. The FTC later admonished Facebook for invoking its agreement, saying it allowed for good-faith research in the public interest.

Laura Edelson, the lead NYU researcher, said Facebook cut her off because of the negative attention her work brought. “Some people at Facebook look at the effect of these transparency efforts and all they see is bad PR,” she said.

The episode was compounded this month when Facebook told misinformation researchers that it had mistakenly provided incomplete data on user interactions and engagement for two years for their work.

“It is inconceivable that most of modern life, as it exists on Facebook, isn’t analyzable by researchers,” said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford University law professor, who is working on federal legislation to force the company to share data with academics.

In August, after Zuckerberg approved Project Amplify, the company tested the change in three U.S. cities, two people with knowledge of the effort said. While the company had previously used the News Feed to promote its own products and social causes, it had not turned to it to openly push positive press about itself, they said.

Once the tests began, Facebook used a system known as Quick Promotes to place stories about people and organizations that used the social network into users’ News Feeds, they said. People essentially see posts with a Facebook logo that link to stories and websites published by the company and from third-party local news sites. One story pushed “Facebook’s Latest Innovations for 2021” and discussed how it was achieving “100 percent renewable energy for our global operations.”

“This is a test for an informational unit clearly marked as coming from Facebook,” Osborne said, adding that Project Amplify was “similar to corporate responsibility initiatives people see in other technology and consumer products.”

Facebook’s defiance against unflattering revelations has also not let up, even without Zuckerberg. On Saturday, Nick Clegg, the company’s vice president for global affairs, wrote a blog post denouncing the premise of The Journal investigation. He said the idea that Facebook executives had repeatedly ignored warnings about problems was “just plain false.”

“These stories have contained deliberate mischaracterizations of what we are trying to do,” Clegg said. He did not detail what the mischaracterizations were.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, signed off last month on a new initiative code-named Project Amplify. The effort, which was hatched at an internal meeting in January, had a specific purpose: to use Facebook’s News Feed, the site’s most important digital real estate, to show people positive stories about the social network.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, signed off last month on a new initiative code-named Project Amplify. The effort, which was hatched at an internal meeting in January, had a specific purpose: to use Facebook’s News Feed, the site’s most important digital real estate, to show people positive stories about the social network. The idea was that pushing pro-Facebook news items, some of them written by the company, would improve its image in the eyes of its users, three people with knowledge of the effort said. But the move was sensitive because Facebook had not previously positioned the News Feed as a place where it burnished its own reputation. Several executives at the meeting were shocked by the proposal, one attendee said. Project Amplify punctuated a series of decisions that Facebook has made this year to aggressively reshape its image. Since that January meeting, the company has begun a multipronged effort to change its narrative by distancing Zuckerberg from scandals, reducing outsiders’ access to internal data, burying a potentially negative report about its content, and increasing its own advertising to showcase its brand. The moves amount to a broad shift in strategy. For years, Facebook confronted crisis after crisis over privacy, misinformation, and hate speech on its platform by publicly apologizing. Zuckerberg personally took responsibility for Russian interference on the site during the 2016 presidential election and has loudly stood up for free speech online. Facebook also promised transparency into the way that it operated. But the drumbeat of criticism on issues as varied as racist speech and vaccine misinformation has not relented. Disgruntled Facebook employees have added to the furor by speaking out against their employer and leaking internal documents. Last week, The Wall Street Journal published articles based on such documents that showed Facebook knew about many of the harms it was causing. So Facebook executives, concluding that their methods had done little to quell criticism or win supporters, decided early this year to go on the offensive, said six current and former employees, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal. “They’re realizing that no one else is going to come to their defense, so they need to do it and say it themselves,” said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director. The changes have involved Facebook executives from its marketing, communications, policy and integrity teams. Alex Schultz, a 14-year company veteran who was named chief marketing officer last year, has also been influential in the image reshaping effort, said five people who worked with him. But at least one of the decisions was driven by Zuckerberg, and all were approved by him, three of the people said. Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesperson, denied that the company had changed its approach. “People deserve to know the steps we’re taking to address the different issues facing our company — and we’re going to share those steps widely,” he said in a statement. For years, Facebook executives have chafed at how their company appeared to receive more scrutiny than Google and Twitter, said current and former employees. They attributed that attention to Facebook’s leaving itself more exposed with its apologies and providing access to internal data, the people said. So in January, executives held a virtual meeting and broached the idea of a more aggressive defense, one attendee said. The group discussed using the News Feed to promote positive news about the company, as well as running ads that linked to favorable articles about Facebook. They also debated how to define a pro-Facebook story, two participants said. That same month, the communications team discussed ways for executives to be less conciliatory when responding to crises and decided there would be less apologizing, said two people with knowledge of the plan. Zuckerberg, who had become intertwined with policy issues including the 2020 election, also wanted to recast himself as an innovator, the people said. In January, the communications team circulated a document with a strategy for distancing Zuckerberg from scandals, partly by focusing his Facebook posts and media appearances on new products, they said. The Information, a tech news site, previously reported on the document. The impact was immediate. On Jan. 11, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer — and not Zuckerberg — told Reuters that the storming of the U.S. Capitol a week earlier had little to do with Facebook. In July, when President Joe Biden said the social network was “killing people” by spreading COVID-19 misinformation, Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president for integrity, disputed the characterization in a blog post and pointed out that the White House had missed its coronavirus vaccination goals. “Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed,” Rosen wrote. Zuckerberg’s personal Facebook and Instagram accounts soon changed. Rather than addressing corporate controversies, Zuckerberg’s posts have recently featured a video of himself riding across a lake carrying an American flag, with messages about new virtual reality and hardware devices. (After this article, which described Zuckerberg as riding an electric surfboard, was published, he wrote on Facebook that it was actually “a hydrofoil that I’m pumping with my own legs.”) Facebook also started cutting back the availability of data that allowed academics and journalists to study how the platform worked. In April, the company told its team behind CrowdTangle, a tool that provides data on the engagement and popularity of Facebook posts, that it was being broken up. While the tool still exists, the people who worked on it were moved to other teams. Part of the impetus came from Schultz, who had grown frustrated with news coverage that used CrowdTangle data to show that Facebook was spreading misinformation, said two people involved in the discussions. For academics who relied on CrowdTangle, it was a blow. Cameron Hickey, a misinformation researcher at the National Conference on Citizenship, a nonprofit focused on civic engagement, said he was “particularly angry” because he felt the CrowdTangle team was being punished for giving an unfiltered view of engagement on Facebook. Schultz argued that Facebook should publish its own information about the site’s most popular content rather than supply access to tools like CrowdTangle, two people said. So in June, the company compiled a report on Facebook’s most-viewed posts for the first three months of 2021. But Facebook did not release the report. After the policy communications team discovered that the top-viewed link for the period was a news story with a headline that suggested a doctor had died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, they feared the company would be chastised for contributing to vaccine hesitancy, according to internal emails reviewed by The New York Times. A day before the report was supposed to be published, Schultz was part of a group that voted to shelve the document, according to the emails. He later posted an internal message about his role at Facebook, which was reviewed by The Times, saying, “I do care about protecting the company’s reputation, but I also care deeply about rigor and transparency.” Facebook also worked to stamp out employee leaks. In July, the communications team shuttered comments on an internal forum that was used for companywide announcements. “OUR ONE REQUEST: PLEASE DON’T LEAK,” read a post about the change. At the same time, Facebook ramped up its marketing. During the Olympics this summer, the company paid for television spots with the tagline “We change the game when we find each other,” to promote how it fostered communities. In the first half of this year, Facebook spent a record $6.1 billion on marketing and sales, up more than 8% from a year earlier, according to a recent earnings report. Weeks later, the company further reduced the ability of academics to conduct research on it when it disabled the Facebook accounts and pages of a group of New York University researchers. The researchers had created a feature for web browsers that allowed them to see users’ Facebook activity, which 16,000 people had consented to use. The resulting data had led to studies showing that misleading political ads had thrived on Facebook during the 2020 election and that users engaged more with right-wing misinformation than many other types of content. In a blog post, Facebook said the NYU researchers had violated rules around collecting user data, citing a privacy agreement it had originally struck with the Federal Trade Commission in 2012. The FTC later admonished Facebook for invoking its agreement, saying it allowed for good-faith research in the public interest. Laura Edelson, the lead NYU researcher, said Facebook cut her off because of the negative attention her work brought. “Some people at Facebook look at the effect of these transparency efforts and all they see is bad PR,” she said. The episode was compounded this month when Facebook told misinformation researchers that it had mistakenly provided incomplete data on user interactions and engagement for two years for their work. “It is inconceivable that most of modern life, as it exists on Facebook, isn’t analyzable by researchers,” said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford University law professor, who is working on federal legislation to force the company to share data with academics. In August, after Zuckerberg approved Project Amplify, the company tested the change in three U.S. cities, two people with knowledge of the effort said. While the company had previously used the News Feed to promote its own products and social causes, it had not turned to it to openly push positive press about itself, they said. Once the tests began, Facebook used a system known as Quick Promotes to place stories about people and organizations that used the social network into users’ News Feeds, they said. People essentially see posts with a Facebook logo that link to stories and websites published by the company and from third-party local news sites. One story pushed “Facebook’s Latest Innovations for 2021” and discussed how it was achieving “100 percent renewable energy for our global operations.” “This is a test for an informational unit clearly marked as coming from Facebook,” Osborne said, adding that Project Amplify was “similar to corporate responsibility initiatives people see in other technology and consumer products.” Facebook’s defiance against unflattering revelations has also not let up, even without Zuckerberg. On Saturday, Nick Clegg, the company’s vice president for global affairs, wrote a blog post denouncing the premise of The Journal investigation. He said the idea that Facebook executives had repeatedly ignored warnings about problems was “just plain false.” “These stories have contained deliberate mischaracterizations of what we are trying to do,” Clegg said. He did not detail what the mischaracterizations were.

No more apologies: Inside Facebook’s push to defend its image

The European Commission will publish a legislative proposal for a standard charger for mobile phones, tablets, and headphones on Thursday — a move that is expected to harm iPhone maker Apple more than its competitors.

For more than a decade, the European Union executive and legislators have pushed for a standard charger, claiming that it would be better for the environment and more convenient for users.

The Commission wants the sale of chargers to be decoupled from devices and also propose a harmonised charging port.

If implemented, the new regulation will mandate the use of USB-C chargers in all cellphones sold in the European Union by 2024.&nbsp;

Brussels wants smartphone manufacturers to use a USB-C charging port to "harmonise the charging stations on devices."

Manufacturers must also utilise the same fast-charging software protocol across all phones, according to the legislative body.

That way, you can use a USB-C charger or charging cable that you bought for your Samsung Galaxy to charge your iPhone.

Apple is, of course, the prime target. Other smartphone makers are slowly but steadily making the conversion to USB-C.

For the iPhone, Cupertino, on the other hand, utilises its own Lightning adapter.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

The European Commission will publish a legislative proposal for a standard charger for mobile phones, tablets, and headphones on Thursday — a move that is expected to harm iPhone maker Apple more than its competitors.

The European Commission will publish a legislative proposal for a standard charger for mobile phones, tablets, and headphones on Thursday — a move that is expected to harm iPhone maker Apple more than its competitors. For more than a decade, the European Union executive and legislators have pushed for a standard charger, claiming that it would be better for the environment and more convenient for users. The Commission wants the sale of chargers to be decoupled from devices and also propose a harmonised charging port. If implemented, the new regulation will mandate the use of USB-C chargers in all cellphones sold in the European Union by 2024. Brussels wants smartphone manufacturers to use a USB-C charging port to "harmonise the charging stations on devices." Manufacturers must also utilise the same fast-charging software protocol across all phones, according to the legislative body. That way, you can use a USB-C charger or charging cable that you bought for your Samsung Galaxy to charge your iPhone. Apple is, of course, the prime target. Other smartphone makers are slowly but steadily making the conversion to USB-C. For the iPhone, Cupertino, on the other hand, utilises its own Lightning adapter. (With inputs from agencies)

'Common charger for all phones': EU wants phones to use USB-C chargers by 2024

Twitter announced Monday it will pay $809 million to settle a 2016 lawsuit alleging members of the social network's leadership, including founder Jack Dorsey, provided misleading information to investors about slowing user growth.

The suit claimed the defendants, such as former CEO Dick Costolo, did not disclose the full picture of the company's state while they sold their personal shares in Twitter.

"The proposed settlement resolves all claims asserted against Twitter and the other named defendants without any admission, concession or finding of any fault, liability or wrongdoing," the company said in a statement.

Twitter said the final settlement agreement will be subject to court approval, and the company intends to pay in cash later this year.

In July, Twitter posted better-than-expected results with gains in revenue, profit, and its user base, sparking a rally in shares for the messaging platform.

Net profit was $66 million on revenue that surged to $1.19 billion, beating Wall Street expectations.

Twitter announced Monday it will pay $809 million to settle a 2016 lawsuit alleging members of the social network's leadership, including founder Jack Dorsey, provided misleading information to investors about slowing user growth.

Twitter announced Monday it will pay $809 million to settle a 2016 lawsuit alleging members of the social network's leadership, including founder Jack Dorsey, provided misleading information to investors about slowing user growth. The suit claimed the defendants, such as former CEO Dick Costolo, did not disclose the full picture of the company's state while they sold their personal shares in Twitter. "The proposed settlement resolves all claims asserted against Twitter and the other named defendants without any admission, concession or finding of any fault, liability or wrongdoing," the company said in a statement. Twitter said the final settlement agreement will be subject to court approval, and the company intends to pay in cash later this year. In July, Twitter posted better-than-expected results with gains in revenue, profit, and its user base, sparking a rally in shares for the messaging platform. Net profit was $66 million on revenue that surged to $1.19 billion, beating Wall Street expectations.

Twitter to pay $809 million to settle a suit claiming investors were misled

Apple issued emergency software updates for a critical vulnerability in its products on Monday after security researchers uncovered a flaw that allows highly invasive spyware from Israel’s NSO Group to infect anyone’s iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or Mac computer without so much as a click.

Apple’s security team had worked around the clock to develop a fix since Tuesday, after researchers at Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organisation at the University of Toronto, discovered that a Saudi activist’s iPhone had been infected with an advanced form of spyware from NSO.

The spyware, called Pegasus, used a novel method to invisibly infect Apple devices without victims’ knowledge. Known as a “zero click remote exploit,” it is considered the holy grail of surveillance because it allows governments, mercenaries and criminals to secretly break into someone’s device without tipping the victim off.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/whats-the-difference-netizens-wonder-as-new-iphone-13-is-almost-like-iphone-12-413210" hreflang="en">What's the difference? Netizens wonder as new iPhone 13 is almost like iPhone 12</a>

Using the zero-click infection method, Pegasus can turn on a user’s camera and microphone, record messages, texts, emails, calls — even those sent via encrypted messaging and phone apps like Signal — and send them back to NSO’s clients at governments around the world.

“This spyware can do everything an iPhone user can do on their device and more,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, who teamed up with Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, on the finding.

The discovery means that more than 1.65 billion Apple products in use worldwide have been vulnerable to NSO’s spyware since at least March. It signals a serious escalation in the cybersecurity arms race, with governments willing to pay whatever it takes to spy on digital communications en masse, and with tech companies, human rights activists and others racing to uncover and fix the latest vulnerabilities that enable such surveillance.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/smart-glasses-made-google-look-dumb-now-facebook-is-giving-them-a-try-413629" hreflang="en">Smart glasses made google look dumb. Now Facebook is giving them a try.</a>

In the past, victims learned their devices were infected by spyware only after receiving a suspicious link texted to their phone or email, and sharing the link with journalists or cybersecurity experts. But NSO’s zero-click capability meant victims received no such prompt, and the flaw enabled full access to a person’s digital life. Such abilities can fetch millions of dollars on the underground market for hacking tools, where governments are not regulators but are clients and are among the most lucrative spenders.

On Monday, Ivan Krstić, Apple’s head of security engineering and architecture commended Citizen Lab for its findings and urged customers to run the latest software updates for the fixes to take effect, by installing iOS 14.8, MacOS 11.6 and WatchOS 7.6.2.

“Attacks like the ones described are highly sophisticated, cost millions of dollars to develop, often have a short shelf life and are used to target specific individuals,” Krstić said.

Apple has said it plans to introduce new security defenses for iMessage, Apple’s texting application, in its next iOS 15 software update, expected later this year.

NSO did not immediately respond to inquiries Monday.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/will-india-bite-into-apples-new-offerings-413241" hreflang="en">Will India bite into Apple's new offerings?</a>

NSO has long drawn controversy. The company has said that it sells its spyware only to governments that meet strict human rights standards and that it expressly requires customers to agree to use its spyware only to track terrorists or criminals.

But over the past six years, NSO’s Pegasus spyware has turned up on the phones of activists, dissidents, lawyers, doctors, nutritionists and even children in countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico.

Starting in 2016, a series of New York Times investigations revealed the presence of NSO’s spyware on the iPhones of Emirati activists lobbying for expanded voting rights; Mexican nutritionists lobbying for a national soda tax; lawyers looking into the mass disappearance of 43 Mexican students; academics who helped write anti-corruption legislation; journalists in Mexico and England; and an American representing victims of sexual abuse by Mexico’s police.

In July, NSO became the subject of further scrutiny after Amnesty International, the human rights watchdog, and Forbidden Stories, a group that focuses on free speech, teamed up with a consortium of media organisations on “The Pegasus Project” to publish a list of 50,000 phone numbers, including some used by journalists, government leaders, dissidents and activists, that they said had been selected as targets by NSO’s clients.

The consortium did not disclose how it had obtained the list, and it was unclear whether the list was aspirational or whether the people had actually been targeted with NSO spyware.

Among those listed were Azam Ahmed, who had been the Mexico City bureau chief for The Times and who has reported widely on corruption, violence and surveillance in Latin America, including on NSO itself; and Ben Hubbard, The Times’ bureau chief in Beirut, who has investigated rights abuses and corruption in Saudi Arabia and wrote a recent biography of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

It also included 14 heads of state, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly of Egypt, Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, Saad-Eddine El Othmani, who until recently was the prime minister of Morocco, and Charles Michel, the head of the European Council.

Shalev Hulio, a co-founder of NSO Group, vehemently denied the list’s accuracy, telling The Times, “This is like opening up the white pages, choosing 50,000 numbers and drawing some conclusion from it.”

This year marks a record for the discovery of so-called zero days, secret software flaws like the one that NSO used to install its spyware. This year, Chinese hackers were caught using zero days in Microsoft Exchange to steal emails and plant ransomware. In July, ransomware criminals used a zero day in software sold by the tech company Kaseya to bring down the networks of some 1,000 companies.

For years, the spyware industry has been a black box. Sales of spyware are locked up in nondisclosure agreements and are frequently rolled into classified programs, with limited, if any, oversight.

NSO’s clients previously infected their targets using text messages that cajoled victims into clicking on links. Those links made it possible for journalists and researchers at organisations like Citizen Lab to investigate the possible presence of spyware. But NSO’s new zero-click method makes the discovery of spyware by journalists and cybersecurity researchers much harder.

“The commercial spyware industry is going darker,” said Marczak, the Citizen Lab researcher.

Marczak said he was first approached by the Saudi activist in March. But it was only last week that he was able to parse evidence from the activist’s phone and uncover digital crumbs similar to those on the iPhones of other Pegasus targets.

Marczak said he found that the Saudi activist, who declined to be identified, had received an image. That image, which was invisible to the user, exploited a vulnerability in the way that Apple processes images and allowed the Pegasus spyware to be quietly downloaded onto Apple devices. With the victim none the wiser, his or her most sensitive communications, data and passwords were siphoned off to servers at intelligence and law-enforcement agencies around the globe.

Citizen Lab said the scale and scope of the operation was unclear. Marczak said, based on the timing of his discovery of Pegasus on the Saudi activist’s iPhone and other iPhones in March, it was safe to say the spyware had been siphoning data from Apple devices for at least six months.

The zero-click exploit, which Citizen Lab dubbed “Forcedentry,” was among the most sophisticated exploits discovered by forensics researchers. In 2019, researchers uncovered that a similar NSO zero-click exploit had been deployed against 1,400 users of WhatsApp, the Facebook messaging service. Last year, Citizen Lab found a digital trail suggesting NSO may have a zero-click exploit to read Apple iMessages, but researchers never discovered the full exploit.

NSO was long suspected of having a zero-click capability. A 2015 hack of one of NSO’s chief competitors, Hacking Team, a Milan-based spyware outfit, revealed emails showing Hacking Team executives scrambling to match a remote, zero-click exploit that its customers claimed NSO had developed. That same year, a Times reporter obtained NSO marketing materials for prospective new clients that mentioned a remote, zero-click capability.

Proof of the capability never turned up.

“Today was the proof,” Marczak said.

orcedentry was the first time that researchers successfully recovered a full, zero-click exploit on the phones of activists and dissidents. When such discoveries are revealed, governments and cybercriminals typically try to exploit vulnerable systems before users have a chance to patch them, making timely patching critical.

Scott-Railton urged Apple customers to run their software updates immediately.

“Do you own an Apple product? Update it today,” he said.

Apple issued emergency software updates for a critical vulnerability in its products on Monday after security researchers uncovered a flaw that allows highly invasive spyware from Israel’s NSO Group to infect anyone’s iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or Mac computer without so much as a click.

Apple issued emergency software updates for a critical vulnerability in its products on Monday after security researchers uncovered a flaw that allows highly invasive spyware from Israel’s NSO Group to infect anyone’s iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or Mac computer without so much as a click. Apple’s security team had worked around the clock to develop a fix since Tuesday, after researchers at Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organisation at the University of Toronto, discovered that a Saudi activist’s iPhone had been infected with an advanced form of spyware from NSO. The spyware, called Pegasus, used a novel method to invisibly infect Apple devices without victims’ knowledge. Known as a “zero click remote exploit,” it is considered the holy grail of surveillance because it allows governments, mercenaries and criminals to secretly break into someone’s device without tipping the victim off. Also read | What's the difference? Netizens wonder as new iPhone 13 is almost like iPhone 12 Using the zero-click infection method, Pegasus can turn on a user’s camera and microphone, record messages, texts, emails, calls — even those sent via encrypted messaging and phone apps like Signal — and send them back to NSO’s clients at governments around the world. “This spyware can do everything an iPhone user can do on their device and more,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, who teamed up with Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, on the finding. The discovery means that more than 1.65 billion Apple products in use worldwide have been vulnerable to NSO’s spyware since at least March. It signals a serious escalation in the cybersecurity arms race, with governments willing to pay whatever it takes to spy on digital communications en masse, and with tech companies, human rights activists and others racing to uncover and fix the latest vulnerabilities that enable such surveillance. Also read | Smart glasses made google look dumb. Now Facebook is giving them a try. In the past, victims learned their devices were infected by spyware only after receiving a suspicious link texted to their phone or email, and sharing the link with journalists or cybersecurity experts. But NSO’s zero-click capability meant victims received no such prompt, and the flaw enabled full access to a person’s digital life. Such abilities can fetch millions of dollars on the underground market for hacking tools, where governments are not regulators but are clients and are among the most lucrative spenders. On Monday, Ivan Krstić, Apple’s head of security engineering and architecture commended Citizen Lab for its findings and urged customers to run the latest software updates for the fixes to take effect, by installing iOS 14.8, MacOS 11.6 and WatchOS 7.6.2. “Attacks like the ones described are highly sophisticated, cost millions of dollars to develop, often have a short shelf life and are used to target specific individuals,” Krstić said. Apple has said it plans to introduce new security defenses for iMessage, Apple’s texting application, in its next iOS 15 software update, expected later this year. NSO did not immediately respond to inquiries Monday. Also read | Will India bite into Apple's new offerings? NSO has long drawn controversy. The company has said that it sells its spyware only to governments that meet strict human rights standards and that it expressly requires customers to agree to use its spyware only to track terrorists or criminals. But over the past six years, NSO’s Pegasus spyware has turned up on the phones of activists, dissidents, lawyers, doctors, nutritionists and even children in countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico. Starting in 2016, a series of New York Times investigations revealed the presence of NSO’s spyware on the iPhones of Emirati activists lobbying for expanded voting rights; Mexican nutritionists lobbying for a national soda tax; lawyers looking into the mass disappearance of 43 Mexican students; academics who helped write anti-corruption legislation; journalists in Mexico and England; and an American representing victims of sexual abuse by Mexico’s police. In July, NSO became the subject of further scrutiny after Amnesty International, the human rights watchdog, and Forbidden Stories, a group that focuses on free speech, teamed up with a consortium of media organisations on “The Pegasus Project” to publish a list of 50,000 phone numbers, including some used by journalists, government leaders, dissidents and activists, that they said had been selected as targets by NSO’s clients. The consortium did not disclose how it had obtained the list, and it was unclear whether the list was aspirational or whether the people had actually been targeted with NSO spyware. Among those listed were Azam Ahmed, who had been the Mexico City bureau chief for The Times and who has reported widely on corruption, violence and surveillance in Latin America, including on NSO itself; and Ben Hubbard, The Times’ bureau chief in Beirut, who has investigated rights abuses and corruption in Saudi Arabia and wrote a recent biography of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It also included 14 heads of state, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly of Egypt, Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, Saad-Eddine El Othmani, who until recently was the prime minister of Morocco, and Charles Michel, the head of the European Council. Shalev Hulio, a co-founder of NSO Group, vehemently denied the list’s accuracy, telling The Times, “This is like opening up the white pages, choosing 50,000 numbers and drawing some conclusion from it.” This year marks a record for the discovery of so-called zero days, secret software flaws like the one that NSO used to install its spyware. This year, Chinese hackers were caught using zero days in Microsoft Exchange to steal emails and plant ransomware. In July, ransomware criminals used a zero day in software sold by the tech company Kaseya to bring down the networks of some 1,000 companies. For years, the spyware industry has been a black box. Sales of spyware are locked up in nondisclosure agreements and are frequently rolled into classified programs, with limited, if any, oversight. NSO’s clients previously infected their targets using text messages that cajoled victims into clicking on links. Those links made it possible for journalists and researchers at organisations like Citizen Lab to investigate the possible presence of spyware. But NSO’s new zero-click method makes the discovery of spyware by journalists and cybersecurity researchers much harder. “The commercial spyware industry is going darker,” said Marczak, the Citizen Lab researcher. Marczak said he was first approached by the Saudi activist in March. But it was only last week that he was able to parse evidence from the activist’s phone and uncover digital crumbs similar to those on the iPhones of other Pegasus targets. Marczak said he found that the Saudi activist, who declined to be identified, had received an image. That image, which was invisible to the user, exploited a vulnerability in the way that Apple processes images and allowed the Pegasus spyware to be quietly downloaded onto Apple devices. With the victim none the wiser, his or her most sensitive communications, data and passwords were siphoned off to servers at intelligence and law-enforcement agencies around the globe. Citizen Lab said the scale and scope of the operation was unclear. Marczak said, based on the timing of his discovery of Pegasus on the Saudi activist’s iPhone and other iPhones in March, it was safe to say the spyware had been siphoning data from Apple devices for at least six months. The zero-click exploit, which Citizen Lab dubbed “Forcedentry,” was among the most sophisticated exploits discovered by forensics researchers. In 2019, researchers uncovered that a similar NSO zero-click exploit had been deployed against 1,400 users of WhatsApp, the Facebook messaging service. Last year, Citizen Lab found a digital trail suggesting NSO may have a zero-click exploit to read Apple iMessages, but researchers never discovered the full exploit. NSO was long suspected of having a zero-click capability. A 2015 hack of one of NSO’s chief competitors, Hacking Team, a Milan-based spyware outfit, revealed emails showing Hacking Team executives scrambling to match a remote, zero-click exploit that its customers claimed NSO had developed. That same year, a Times reporter obtained NSO marketing materials for prospective new clients that mentioned a remote, zero-click capability. Proof of the capability never turned up. “Today was the proof,” Marczak said. orcedentry was the first time that researchers successfully recovered a full, zero-click exploit on the phones of activists and dissidents. When such discoveries are revealed, governments and cybercriminals typically try to exploit vulnerable systems before users have a chance to patch them, making timely patching critical. Scott-Railton urged Apple customers to run their software updates immediately. “Do you own an Apple product? Update it today,” he said.

Apple issues emergency security updates to close a spyware flaw

On Saturday, after a 3-mile hike through the Presidio, I stood in a throng of tourists looking at the Golden Gate Bridge. As the crowd snapped photos of the landmark, I decided to join in.

But instead of reaching into my pocket for my iPhone, I tapped the side of my Ray-Ban sunglasses until I heard the click of a shutter. Later, I downloaded the photos that my sunglasses had just taken to my phone.

The process was instant, simple, unobtrusive — and it was powered by Facebook, which has teamed up with Ray-Ban. Their new line of eyewear, called Ray-Ban Stories and unveiled Thursday, can take photos, record video, answer phone calls and play music and podcasts.

It all made me feel that I was being dragged into some inevitable future dreamed up by people much more techie than me, one in which the seams between the real world and the technology that supports it had all but vanished.

For years, Silicon Valley has chased a vision similar to that of a William Gibson novel, where sensors and cameras are woven into the everyday lives and clothes of billions of people. Yet the tech companies that have pursued these ideas have often failed to achieve them, as people have shunned wearable computers — especially on their faces.

Remember Google Glass, the smart glasses that Google co-founder Sergey Brin introduced while jumping out of an airplane? That project foundered, with bars in San Francisco at one point barring Glass-wearers — also pejoratively known as "Glassholes" — from entry. Later came Snap’s Spectacles, smart glasses that focused more on fashion and the novelty of recording 10-second video clips. That product, too, never really broke through.

Now Facebook is aiming to usher in an era when people grow more comfortable sharing their lives digitally, beginning with what is in front of their faces.

"We asked ourselves, how do we build a product that helps people actually be in the moment they’re in?" Andrew Bosworth, head of Facebook Reality Labs, said in an interview. "Isn’t that better than having to take out your phone and hold it in front of your face every time you want to capture a moment?"

Bosworth rejected claims that Facebook was picking up where others had left off. "This product has not been tried before because we’ve never had a design like this before," he said, adding that Facebook and Ray-Ban were focused more on the fashion of eyewear than the tech inside the frames.

"Eyewear is a very specific category that changes the way you look," said Rocco Basilico, chief wearables officer at Luxottica, which owns Ray-Ban and wants to expand into the wearables market. "We started this product from the design, and we refused to compromise on that design."

Let’s be real for a second. The new glasses, which start at $299 and come in more than 20 styles, face hurdles apart from Silicon Valley’s stop-start history with smart glasses. Facebook has long been under scrutiny for how it treats people’s personal data. Using the glasses to surreptitiously film people is bound to cause concerns, not to mention what Facebook might do with the videos that people collect.

I asked if Facebook’s brand baggage was why its name was not in the title of the glasses. The company said that was not the case.

"Facebook is not naive to the fact that other smart glasses have failed in the past," said Jeremy Greenberg, policy counsel for the Future of Privacy Forum, a privacy nonprofit partly financed by Facebook. But, he added, "the public’s expectations of privacy have changed since the days of previous smart glasses releases."

With all of that in mind, I took the new Facebook Ray-Bans out for a spin for a few days over the past week.

On close inspection, I found the frames house two cameras, two micro speakers, three microphones and a Snapdragon computer processor chip. They also come with a charging case that plugs into any computer via USB-C cable. On a full charge, the glasses can be used for roughly six hours.

The spectacles require a Facebook account. They are also paired with a smartphone app, Facebook View. After recording videos — the glasses can record up to 35 30-second videos or take 500 photos — people can upload their content wirelessly to the app, where the photos are encrypted. From Facebook View, people can share the content to their social networks or messaging apps as well as save photos directly to their phone’s on-device storage outside the Facebook app.

To preempt privacy concerns, a small indicator light flickers on when the glasses are recording, notifying people that they are being photographed or filmed. As you set up the Facebook View app, it also displays prompts asking users to "respect others around you" and asking whether it "feels appropriate" to take a photograph or video in the moment. The app even invites people to "do a little demo" to show others that they are being recorded.

Still, users may have other hesitations, as I did. The spectacles have an audio activation feature, called Facebook Assistant, which can be turned on to take hands-free photos and videos by saying, "Hey, Facebook."

For me, that was a sticking point. What do the people around me think when they hear me utter, "Hey, Facebook, take a photo"? Can I still look cool doing that? Can anyone?

What’s more, to help Facebook improve the assistant, people are asked to allow the device to store transcripts of their voice interactions, which will later be reviewed by a mix of humans and machine-learning algorithms. I did not love that and imagine others will not be too keen, either, no matter how benign their voice interactions might be.

Many of these privacy concerns are beside the point for technologists who see wearables as inexorable for society. For Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the ultimate goal is to eventually release a pair of smart glasses that fully augment reality, which puts a kind of virtual overlay onto the world in front of people.

That idea is yet another step on the road to the metaverse, Zuckerberg’s term for how parts of the virtual and actual world will eventually meld together and share different parts of each other. Perhaps one day I might use a pair of Facebook AR glasses to order a digital hat for myself, which other people who are wearing AR glasses might be able to see.

For a few moments on my hike Saturday, I could just make out that vision of the future that Facebook executives were so excited about.

Clambering down the many trails in the Presidio presented me with dazzling views, which I was able to shoot using only my voice while still having one hand gripping my dog’s leash and the other holding my backpack. Capturing the cityscape was as easy as issuing a voice command while my phone stayed in my pocket.

Even better, I just looked like a normal dude wearing sunglasses, not someone wearing a wacky face computer.

One added bonus was that no one (except my dog) could hear me say, "Hey, Facebook," while I was alone on the trails. But in the city surrounded by people, I confess I might stick to tapping the side of my frames to take photos.

On Saturday, after a 3-mile hike through the Presidio, I stood in a throng of tourists looking at the Golden Gate Bridge. As the crowd snapped photos of the landmark, I decided to join in.

On Saturday, after a 3-mile hike through the Presidio, I stood in a throng of tourists looking at the Golden Gate Bridge. As the crowd snapped photos of the landmark, I decided to join in. But instead of reaching into my pocket for my iPhone, I tapped the side of my Ray-Ban sunglasses until I heard the click of a shutter. Later, I downloaded the photos that my sunglasses had just taken to my phone. The process was instant, simple, unobtrusive — and it was powered by Facebook, which has teamed up with Ray-Ban. Their new line of eyewear, called Ray-Ban Stories and unveiled Thursday, can take photos, record video, answer phone calls and play music and podcasts. It all made me feel that I was being dragged into some inevitable future dreamed up by people much more techie than me, one in which the seams between the real world and the technology that supports it had all but vanished. For years, Silicon Valley has chased a vision similar to that of a William Gibson novel, where sensors and cameras are woven into the everyday lives and clothes of billions of people. Yet the tech companies that have pursued these ideas have often failed to achieve them, as people have shunned wearable computers — especially on their faces. Remember Google Glass, the smart glasses that Google co-founder Sergey Brin introduced while jumping out of an airplane? That project foundered, with bars in San Francisco at one point barring Glass-wearers — also pejoratively known as "Glassholes" — from entry. Later came Snap’s Spectacles, smart glasses that focused more on fashion and the novelty of recording 10-second video clips. That product, too, never really broke through. Now Facebook is aiming to usher in an era when people grow more comfortable sharing their lives digitally, beginning with what is in front of their faces. "We asked ourselves, how do we build a product that helps people actually be in the moment they’re in?" Andrew Bosworth, head of Facebook Reality Labs, said in an interview. "Isn’t that better than having to take out your phone and hold it in front of your face every time you want to capture a moment?" Bosworth rejected claims that Facebook was picking up where others had left off. "This product has not been tried before because we’ve never had a design like this before," he said, adding that Facebook and Ray-Ban were focused more on the fashion of eyewear than the tech inside the frames. "Eyewear is a very specific category that changes the way you look," said Rocco Basilico, chief wearables officer at Luxottica, which owns Ray-Ban and wants to expand into the wearables market. "We started this product from the design, and we refused to compromise on that design." Let’s be real for a second. The new glasses, which start at $299 and come in more than 20 styles, face hurdles apart from Silicon Valley’s stop-start history with smart glasses. Facebook has long been under scrutiny for how it treats people’s personal data. Using the glasses to surreptitiously film people is bound to cause concerns, not to mention what Facebook might do with the videos that people collect. I asked if Facebook’s brand baggage was why its name was not in the title of the glasses. The company said that was not the case. "Facebook is not naive to the fact that other smart glasses have failed in the past," said Jeremy Greenberg, policy counsel for the Future of Privacy Forum, a privacy nonprofit partly financed by Facebook. But, he added, "the public’s expectations of privacy have changed since the days of previous smart glasses releases." With all of that in mind, I took the new Facebook Ray-Bans out for a spin for a few days over the past week. On close inspection, I found the frames house two cameras, two micro speakers, three microphones and a Snapdragon computer processor chip. They also come with a charging case that plugs into any computer via USB-C cable. On a full charge, the glasses can be used for roughly six hours. The spectacles require a Facebook account. They are also paired with a smartphone app, Facebook View. After recording videos — the glasses can record up to 35 30-second videos or take 500 photos — people can upload their content wirelessly to the app, where the photos are encrypted. From Facebook View, people can share the content to their social networks or messaging apps as well as save photos directly to their phone’s on-device storage outside the Facebook app. To preempt privacy concerns, a small indicator light flickers on when the glasses are recording, notifying people that they are being photographed or filmed. As you set up the Facebook View app, it also displays prompts asking users to "respect others around you" and asking whether it "feels appropriate" to take a photograph or video in the moment. The app even invites people to "do a little demo" to show others that they are being recorded. Still, users may have other hesitations, as I did. The spectacles have an audio activation feature, called Facebook Assistant, which can be turned on to take hands-free photos and videos by saying, "Hey, Facebook." For me, that was a sticking point. What do the people around me think when they hear me utter, "Hey, Facebook, take a photo"? Can I still look cool doing that? Can anyone? What’s more, to help Facebook improve the assistant, people are asked to allow the device to store transcripts of their voice interactions, which will later be reviewed by a mix of humans and machine-learning algorithms. I did not love that and imagine others will not be too keen, either, no matter how benign their voice interactions might be. Many of these privacy concerns are beside the point for technologists who see wearables as inexorable for society. For Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the ultimate goal is to eventually release a pair of smart glasses that fully augment reality, which puts a kind of virtual overlay onto the world in front of people. That idea is yet another step on the road to the metaverse, Zuckerberg’s term for how parts of the virtual and actual world will eventually meld together and share different parts of each other. Perhaps one day I might use a pair of Facebook AR glasses to order a digital hat for myself, which other people who are wearing AR glasses might be able to see. For a few moments on my hike Saturday, I could just make out that vision of the future that Facebook executives were so excited about. Clambering down the many trails in the Presidio presented me with dazzling views, which I was able to shoot using only my voice while still having one hand gripping my dog’s leash and the other holding my backpack. Capturing the cityscape was as easy as issuing a voice command while my phone stayed in my pocket. Even better, I just looked like a normal dude wearing sunglasses, not someone wearing a wacky face computer. One added bonus was that no one (except my dog) could hear me say, "Hey, Facebook," while I was alone on the trails. But in the city surrounded by people, I confess I might stick to tapping the side of my frames to take photos.

Smart glasses made google look dumb. Now Facebook is giving them a try.

Apple CEO Tim Cook launched the latest and most awaited new iPhone model, called the iPhone 13, to over 2 million viewers on YouTube on Tuesday.

According to Apple, the iPhone 13 sports a smaller display cutout, or "notch," at the top of the screen, as well as larger batteries that deliver between 1.5 and 2.5 hours of battery life, depending on device size, over last year's models.&nbsp;

Apple Inc. released the iPhone 13 and 13 Mini with brighter screens, as well as improvements to its iPads and watches, to tempt customers into 5G plans.

The iPhone 13 will be available in five colours and will contain a new chip called the A15 Bionic, which will enable functions such as automatically detecting when the phone's camera is directed at text.&nbsp; 
 
The new iPhone 13 features new diagonally placed camera modules that are basically the same as last year's model.

According to Apple, one camera is a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens with a large sensor that collects 50% more light.

The ultra-wide lens is the other lens.

A new "cinematic mode" that can retain focus on a moving subject is one of the camera upgrades.&nbsp; 
 
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iPhone 13 camera specifications (Picture courtesy: Apple Inc.)

"The competition is still playing catchup to our chips - not just from last year, but even from two years ago," said Kaiann Drance, an Apple iPhone marketing executive.

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The Series 7 smart watch will feature a larger display and faster charging. It will start at $399 and be available later this autumn. 
 
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&nbsp;

The battery life has improved:&nbsp;

The iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini have a bigger battery. It will last up to an hour and a half longer than the iPhone 12 according to Apple.

This is great news for iPhone 13 mini fans. The iPhone 12 mini's battery was ridiculed last year for not lasting as long as the larger models.&nbsp;

The iPad Mini has also been updated with 5G connection and a new design that resembles the higher-end iPad Air and Pro versions.

Apple also added a new camera to its base-model iPad, allowing users to work and learn from home.

The iPad starts at $329 for the standard model and $499 for the Mini.

Next week, both will be available for sale.

Apple shares were down 0.5%, in-line with a slight downturn in broader markets.

Apple last year introduced its iPhone 12, which featured a new look and its first devices with 5G connectivity. This year, analyst expect modest hardware upgrades and a deeper focus on 5G.

In particular, carriers such as AT&amp;T Inc, Verizon Communications and T-Mobile that have significantly built out their networks since the start of this year are likely to offer new incentives around the devices that can take advantage of the faster speeds those networks can offer, said Ben Bajarin, head of consumer technologies at Creative Strategies.

"There seems to be way more (5G network capacity) than was in place even six months ago," Bajarin said. "They want people upgrading. They're going to be really aggressive."

Apple's biggest product launch of the year comes as some of the shine has come off its stock as business practices such as charging software developers commissions on in-app payments have come under regulatory scrutiny.

Apple shares were up about 15.6% year to date, trailing the Nasdaq Composite Index, which was up nearly 19% over the same period.

The Apple Watch has become a cornerstone of its $30.6 billion accessories segment, which was up 25% in Apple's most recent fiscal year even as its iPhone revenue declined slightly. Analysts widely believe that Apple users who buy more than one product - such as an Apple Watch and iPhone - are more likely to stick with the brand and spend on the company's apps and services.

Apple focused on fitness features such as improving how the watch tracks bicycling workouts and dust protection for hiking. The watch is paired tightly with Apple Fitness+, a paid service offering guided workouts with Apple instructors. The company added pilates and skiing-oriented workouts, and a group workouts function designed to let users work out together. The company also bundled three months of free service with its watch devices.

Shares of exercise bike and online training company Peloton were down about 1.6%.

"It's the one service they offer where you literally have to have this product or you can't use this service," Bajarin said. 
 
(With inputs from agencies)

Apple CEO Tim Cook launched the latest and most awaited new iPhone model, called the iPhone 13, to over 2 million viewers on YouTube on Tuesday. According to Apple, the iPhone 13 sports a smaller display cutout, or "notch," at the top of the screen, as well as larger batteries that deliver between 1.

Apple CEO Tim Cook launched the latest and most awaited new iPhone model, called the iPhone 13, to over 2 million viewers on YouTube on Tuesday. According to Apple, the iPhone 13 sports a smaller display cutout, or "notch," at the top of the screen, as well as larger batteries that deliver between 1.5 and 2.5 hours of battery life, depending on device size, over last year's models. Apple Inc. released the iPhone 13 and 13 Mini with brighter screens, as well as improvements to its iPads and watches, to tempt customers into 5G plans. The iPhone 13 will be available in five colours and will contain a new chip called the A15 Bionic, which will enable functions such as automatically detecting when the phone's camera is directed at text. The new iPhone 13 features new diagonally placed camera modules that are basically the same as last year's model. According to Apple, one camera is a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens with a large sensor that collects 50% more light. The ultra-wide lens is the other lens. A new "cinematic mode" that can retain focus on a moving subject is one of the camera upgrades. iPhone 13 camera specifications (Picture courtesy: Apple Inc.) "The competition is still playing catchup to our chips - not just from last year, but even from two years ago," said Kaiann Drance, an Apple iPhone marketing executive. × The Series 7 smart watch will feature a larger display and faster charging. It will start at $399 and be available later this autumn. The battery life has improved: The iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini have a bigger battery. It will last up to an hour and a half longer than the iPhone 12 according to Apple. This is great news for iPhone 13 mini fans. The iPhone 12 mini's battery was ridiculed last year for not lasting as long as the larger models. The iPad Mini has also been updated with 5G connection and a new design that resembles the higher-end iPad Air and Pro versions. Apple also added a new camera to its base-model iPad, allowing users to work and learn from home. The iPad starts at $329 for the standard model and $499 for the Mini. Next week, both will be available for sale. Apple shares were down 0.5%, in-line with a slight downturn in broader markets. Apple last year introduced its iPhone 12, which featured a new look and its first devices with 5G connectivity. This year, analyst expect modest hardware upgrades and a deeper focus on 5G. In particular, carriers such as AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications and T-Mobile that have significantly built out their networks since the start of this year are likely to offer new incentives around the devices that can take advantage of the faster speeds those networks can offer, said Ben Bajarin, head of consumer technologies at Creative Strategies. "There seems to be way more (5G network capacity) than was in place even six months ago," Bajarin said. "They want people upgrading. They're going to be really aggressive." Apple's biggest product launch of the year comes as some of the shine has come off its stock as business practices such as charging software developers commissions on in-app payments have come under regulatory scrutiny. Apple shares were up about 15.6% year to date, trailing the Nasdaq Composite Index, which was up nearly 19% over the same period. The Apple Watch has become a cornerstone of its $30.6 billion accessories segment, which was up 25% in Apple's most recent fiscal year even as its iPhone revenue declined slightly. Analysts widely believe that Apple users who buy more than one product - such as an Apple Watch and iPhone - are more likely to stick with the brand and spend on the company's apps and services. Apple focused on fitness features such as improving how the watch tracks bicycling workouts and dust protection for hiking. The watch is paired tightly with Apple Fitness+, a paid service offering guided workouts with Apple instructors. The company added pilates and skiing-oriented workouts, and a group workouts function designed to let users work out together. The company also bundled three months of free service with its watch devices. Shares of exercise bike and online training company Peloton were down about 1.6%. "It's the one service they offer where you literally have to have this product or you can't use this service," Bajarin said. (With inputs from agencies)

Apple unveils iPhone 13, adds new features to iPads, watches

Apple event is something that grabs a lot of eyeballs globally. No matter the price of the gadgets, Apple fans will still tell you that they are the best and get you max bang for your buck.

iPhone 13 made a grand entry on the tech stage with Apple CEO Tim Cook presenting the latest top-of-the-line on the Apple shelves. But what caught the attention of Bollywood fans was the&nbsp;Dum Maro Dum tune played at the very start of the promotion video.

The iconic guitar notes were too hard to miss. And this sent the social media mills running. It is now coming to light that the actual song was 'Work All Day' by Footsie. But the artist had undoubtedly used the recognisable Hindi tune.

Before Twitter reactions, check out the video first.

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Apple using Dum Maro Dum! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AppleEvent?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AppleEvent</a> <a href="https://t.co/FDIPmugLF6">pic.twitter.com/FDIPmugLF6</a>
— Priyank (@hey_priyank) <a href="https://twitter.com/hey_priyank/status/1437838220075622400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2021</a></blockquote>
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As expected, Indian Twitter went crazy with all sorts of reactions

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Did <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Apple?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Apple</a> just used Dum maro Dum song in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AppleEvent?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AppleEvent</a> to launch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/iphone13series?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#iphone13series</a> ? <a href="https://t.co/8ItU0VNaCY">pic.twitter.com/8ItU0VNaCY</a>
— Shubham Mishra (@helloiamshubham) <a href="https://twitter.com/helloiamshubham/status/1437838859866292224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2021</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;

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Why <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AppleEvent?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AppleEvent</a> is running "Dum Maro Dum" music?
— Jaynti Kanani (@_jdkanani) <a href="https://twitter.com/_jdkanani/status/1437837836271570947?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2021</a></blockquote>
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THEY USED DUM MARO DUM MUSIC HELPP
— juhi⁷ || ishq day (@bluendgreypjm) <a href="https://twitter.com/bluendgreypjm/status/1437837705753161729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Did I just listen to a “Dum Maro Dum” remix at an iPhone event? 🤔
— Vidit Bhargava (@viditb) <a href="https://twitter.com/viditb/status/1437838155785244672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2021</a></blockquote>
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We know that the iconic song is shot on Zeenat Aman. But some Tweeple appeared to give Deepika Padukone the credit. Maybe it was a reference to the remix that came out a few years ago.

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Two Observations from iPhone 13 commercial. 
 
1. Can a delivery boy afford an iPhone13 as shown in the ad ? 
 
2. The bgm sounds similar to Deepika Padukone’s Dum Maro Dum<a href="https://t.co/qiiytheXDI">https://t.co/qiiytheXDI</a>
— Krishikesh Khairnar (@KrishKhairnar) <a href="https://twitter.com/KrishKhairnar/status/1437858360800395265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Some Indian users were in a different sort of 'gham'

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🙄This Dum maro dum is out of my budget
— Gaganpreet Kaur (@fabgagan) <a href="https://twitter.com/fabgagan/status/1437949667728265216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 15, 2021</a></blockquote>
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But all said and done, the apple event did have quite a following as the streaming was watched by 2 million people worldwide.

Apple did not announce any blockbuster features or products, but analysts expect customers hanging onto older models like the iPhone X will be eager to upgrade. To encourage trade-ins, participating wireless carriers are offering incentives ahead of the year-end holiday season that to make the new phones free to some customers.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/technology/apple-unveils-iphone-13-adds-new-features-to-ipads-watches-413123">Apple unveils iPhone 13, adds new features to iPads, watches</a>

The iPhone 13 will have a new chip called the A15 Bionic that enables features like automatically translating text. The phone also has a better display, longer battery life and a Cinematic mode for automatically changing focus while taking videos. Apple said the iPhone 13 will have custom 5G antennas and radio components for faster speeds and will come in five colors.

The phone will start at $699, and participating wireless carriers will offer up to $700 off for qualifying trade-ins. The iPhone 13 Pro starts at $999 and the Pro Max starts at $1,099, with trade-in offers of up to $1,000. All three models will be available Sept. 24.

Apple event is something that grabs a lot of eyeballs globally. No matter the price of the gadgets, Apple fans will still tell you that they are the best and get you max bang for your buck.

Apple event is something that grabs a lot of eyeballs globally. No matter the price of the gadgets, Apple fans will still tell you that they are the best and get you max bang for your buck. iPhone 13 made a grand entry on the tech stage with Apple CEO Tim Cook presenting the latest top-of-the-line on the Apple shelves. But what caught the attention of Bollywood fans was the Dum Maro Dum tune played at the very start of the promotion video. The iconic guitar notes were too hard to miss. And this sent the social media mills running. It is now coming to light that the actual song was 'Work All Day' by Footsie. But the artist had undoubtedly used the recognisable Hindi tune. Before Twitter reactions, check out the video first. Apple using Dum Maro Dum! #AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/FDIPmugLF6 — Priyank (@hey_priyank) September 14, 2021 × As expected, Indian Twitter went crazy with all sorts of reactions Did #Apple just used Dum maro Dum song in #AppleEvent to launch #iphone13series ? pic.twitter.com/8ItU0VNaCY — Shubham Mishra (@helloiamshubham) September 14, 2021 × Why #AppleEvent is running "Dum Maro Dum" music? — Jaynti Kanani (@_jdkanani) September 14, 2021 × THEY USED DUM MARO DUM MUSIC HELPP — juhi⁷ || ishq day (@bluendgreypjm) September 14, 2021 × Did I just listen to a “Dum Maro Dum” remix at an iPhone event? 🤔 — Vidit Bhargava (@viditb) September 14, 2021 × We know that the iconic song is shot on Zeenat Aman. But some Tweeple appeared to give Deepika Padukone the credit. Maybe it was a reference to the remix that came out a few years ago. Two Observations from iPhone 13 commercial. 1. Can a delivery boy afford an iPhone13 as shown in the ad ? 2. The bgm sounds similar to Deepika Padukone’s Dum Maro Dumhttps://t.co/qiiytheXDI — Krishikesh Khairnar (@KrishKhairnar) September 14, 2021 × Some Indian users were in a different sort of 'gham' 🙄This Dum maro dum is out of my budget — Gaganpreet Kaur (@fabgagan) September 15, 2021 × But all said and done, the apple event did have quite a following as the streaming was watched by 2 million people worldwide. Apple did not announce any blockbuster features or products, but analysts expect customers hanging onto older models like the iPhone X will be eager to upgrade. To encourage trade-ins, participating wireless carriers are offering incentives ahead of the year-end holiday season that to make the new phones free to some customers. Also Read | Apple unveils iPhone 13, adds new features to iPads, watches The iPhone 13 will have a new chip called the A15 Bionic that enables features like automatically translating text. The phone also has a better display, longer battery life and a Cinematic mode for automatically changing focus while taking videos. Apple said the iPhone 13 will have custom 5G antennas and radio components for faster speeds and will come in five colors. The phone will start at $699, and participating wireless carriers will offer up to $700 off for qualifying trade-ins. The iPhone 13 Pro starts at $999 and the Pro Max starts at $1,099, with trade-in offers of up to $1,000. All three models will be available Sept. 24.

Apple Event 2021: 'Dum Maro Dum' tune sparks social media frenzy

Social media giant Facebook has found that its Instagram app is harmful to a number of teenagers on multiple occasions.&nbsp;

According to internal Facebook documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook has been studying how its Instagram photo-sharing app affects the mental health of its millions of young users for the last three years, and the firm's researchers have repeatedly found that Instagram is toxic to a sizable percentage of them, particularly teenage girls.&nbsp;

"We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls," said one slide from a 2019 presentation by researchers that was posted to Facebook’s internal message board and viewed by the WSJ.

According to one internal Facebook presentation, among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users blamed Instagram.

According to Facebook, 14% of boys in the United States said Instagram made them feel bad about themselves.&nbsp;

"Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse," the researchers reportedly wrote.&nbsp;

While Facebook concluded that a large percentage of teenagers are not negatively impacted by Instagram, the Journal reports that the features identified as the most harmful are part of the social media company's core makeup.

According to the report, researchers warned that Instagram's Explore page, which serves users curated posts from a variety of accounts, can lead users to potentially harmful content.

The app also has a culture of only posting the best pictures and moments, and it is a highly addictive product.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

Social media giant Facebook has found that its Instagram app is harmful to a number of teenagers on multiple occasions. According to internal Facebook documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook has been studying how its Instagram photo-sharing app affects the mental health of its millions of young users for the last three years, and the firm's researchers have repeatedly found that Instagram is toxic to a sizable percentage of them, particularly teenage girls.

Social media giant Facebook has found that its Instagram app is harmful to a number of teenagers on multiple occasions. According to internal Facebook documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook has been studying how its Instagram photo-sharing app affects the mental health of its millions of young users for the last three years, and the firm's researchers have repeatedly found that Instagram is toxic to a sizable percentage of them, particularly teenage girls. "We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls," said one slide from a 2019 presentation by researchers that was posted to Facebook’s internal message board and viewed by the WSJ. According to one internal Facebook presentation, among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users blamed Instagram. According to Facebook, 14% of boys in the United States said Instagram made them feel bad about themselves. "Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse," the researchers reportedly wrote. While Facebook concluded that a large percentage of teenagers are not negatively impacted by Instagram, the Journal reports that the features identified as the most harmful are part of the social media company's core makeup. According to the report, researchers warned that Instagram's Explore page, which serves users curated posts from a variety of accounts, can lead users to potentially harmful content. The app also has a culture of only posting the best pictures and moments, and it is a highly addictive product. (With inputs from agencies)

Facebook documents show how toxic Instagram is for teens: Reports

Technology has been trying to ease human being’s lives for years now, and space tech seems to have solved a major problem for rangers.<o:p></o:p>

A new space technology, termed as SpaceCows program, will help rangers predict where their herd is headed and cull them or fence off from important sites.

<o:p>Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/worlds-largest-economies-are-not-in-line-with-the-paris-agreement-on-climate-413253">World's largest economies are not in line with the Paris Agreement on climate</a></o:p>

CSIRO teamed up with Microsoft to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and space technologies to help the rangers predict the movement of feral herds and manage them to make sure they are kept away from important heritage and cultural sites.<o:p></o:p>

AI will utilise data and track data of tagged animals through satellite and will create a replica of virtual landscape. The AI will be able to make calculations and predict the movements of the herds. For example, it will be able to predict if the herds will be moving towards the water bodies based on the temperature of the day. Through this calculation, rangers will be ready with their plan.<o:p></o:p>

SpaceCows is a joint project between Aboriginal land management groups, universities, CSIRO, satellite company Kineis, and Microsoft.

<o:p>Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/science/isros-new-series-of-heavy-lift-rockets-to-carry-between-5-16-tonnes-to-gto-413107">ISRO’s new series of heavy-lift rockets to carry between 5-16 tonnes to GTO</a></o:p>

Experts from the project will help train rangers aptly to use the AI-technology such as drones and tablets, to help them manage their herd in farm lands of more than 22,000sq km.<o:p></o:p>

"We've got areas we call bora grounds where we do initiations. (They’re) like meeting places, you know, where our mob gather and our dancers and songwriters can perform,"&nbsp;Balnggarrawarra ranger and Cape York’s Normanby Station traditional owner Vince Harrigan said. "Some of our rock art they’re down really low, in sheltered areas. There have been cases where there have been cattle right next to these low paintings, rubbing up against them. Over time they’re brushing it off, rubbing it off."<o:p></o:p>

Technology has been trying to ease human being’s lives for years now, and space tech seems to have solved a major problem for rangers. A new space technology, termed as SpaceCows program, will help rangers predict where their herd is headed and cull them or fence off from important sites.

Technology has been trying to ease human being’s lives for years now, and space tech seems to have solved a major problem for rangers. A new space technology, termed as SpaceCows program, will help rangers predict where their herd is headed and cull them or fence off from important sites. Also read | World's largest economies are not in line with the Paris Agreement on climate CSIRO teamed up with Microsoft to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and space technologies to help the rangers predict the movement of feral herds and manage them to make sure they are kept away from important heritage and cultural sites. AI will utilise data and track data of tagged animals through satellite and will create a replica of virtual landscape. The AI will be able to make calculations and predict the movements of the herds. For example, it will be able to predict if the herds will be moving towards the water bodies based on the temperature of the day. Through this calculation, rangers will be ready with their plan. SpaceCows is a joint project between Aboriginal land management groups, universities, CSIRO, satellite company Kineis, and Microsoft. Also read | ISRO’s new series of heavy-lift rockets to carry between 5-16 tonnes to GTO Experts from the project will help train rangers aptly to use the AI-technology such as drones and tablets, to help them manage their herd in farm lands of more than 22,000sq km. "We've got areas we call bora grounds where we do initiations. (They’re) like meeting places, you know, where our mob gather and our dancers and songwriters can perform," Balnggarrawarra ranger and Cape York’s Normanby Station traditional owner Vince Harrigan said. "Some of our rock art they’re down really low, in sheltered areas. There have been cases where there have been cattle right next to these low paintings, rubbing up against them. Over time they’re brushing it off, rubbing it off."

SpaceCows: AI to help rangers predict herds' movements to save sacred sites and rock art

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