Meta has even moved up the launch date for Threads, scheduled to be available at 7 pm ET on July 5

The malware hit facilities on Guam that would be critical to any US response to an invasion of Taiwan.

Apple has opened pre-orders for the new iPhone 15 and 15 Pro. The new handsets were revealed at a livestreamed event this week, and will go on sale next Friday, 22 September. Pre-orders opened at 5am local pacific time, or 1pm in the UK. That is a little later than it used to be: Apple would open sales at midnight local time, which meant that customers on the east coast of the US had to wake up in the middle of the night if they wanted to ensure they were first in line. In the hours before those pre-orders opened, Apple took its store offline. Those attempting to buy anything saw a message reading “we can’t wait either”, and telling customers to come back later on. Apple was also once famous – and sometimes criticised – for the long lines that would appear outside of its stores ahead of the release of the iPhone, and the loud reception that customers received when they came to buy one. These days, however, it encourages people to buy the phone online if they can, and those queues have largely become a thing of the past. Nowadays, the company offers a range of ways to pre-order, many of which are intended to avoid queueing either online or at stores. Customers could line up their pre-order in advance, for instance – through a system called ‘Get Ready’ that lets them choose which iPhone and financing options they want, so that they are waiting when pre-orders actually open. Apple also lets people order their new products online and pick them up at a store, or to go to a store and have any out-of-stock products sent to them from there, in another measure that helps avoids lines or waiting. As well as buying the new iPhone directly from Apple, various networks are offering their own deals. Carriers largely run on the same schedule, opening pre-orders on 15 September and then making the phones available a week later. The iPhone 15 starts at £799, and the Pro version starts at £999. There had been considerable rumours in advance of the event that Apple was planning significant price rises – but prices actually fell slightly in the UK, while staying largely the same in the US. The normal iPhone 15 largely brings last year’s iPhone 14 Pro upgrades to the less expensive phones, including the Dynamic Island and its processor, as well as new colours. The iPhone 15 Pro gets a faster chip, improved cameras, and a new titanium material. The rest of the products unveiled during Apple’s ‘Wanderlust’ event – the Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2 and new AirPods Pro – are already available to order. Read More iPhone 12 is not emitting dangerous radiation, Apple says, amid fears of Europe ban France’s iPhone 12 ban could spread across Europe, regulators say Everything Apple killed off at iPhone 15 event

Netflix has got rid of its ‘Basic’ plan, the cheapest option to watch without ads. Until recently, Netflix had the option to pay £6.99 or $6.99 for its cheapest normal tier, which came with some restrictions including watching only in HD and on one device at a time. The company had already axed a similar offering in Canada. And now it has removed the option to join that plan in the US and UK. Instead, users will have to choose between watching with ads – which costs $6.99 in the US, or £4.99 in the UK – or paying the much higher price of $15.49 or £10.99 for the “standard” plan. People who already subscribed to the basic plan will be allowed to stay on it, so long as they make no changes to their subscription. But the offering will no longer be available to new users. Netflix had already hidden the option behind a button on its website, and had seemed to discourage people from taking it up. In an earnings call this week, in which Netflix also announcing surging subscription growth that suggests its crackdown on password sharing is working, the company’s co-CEO Greg Peters said that it was looking to “optimise” its plan structure. He said that the company wants “to give consumers access across a wide range”, and pointed to the lower “entry prices” on offer to customers. Those customers must watch ads if they wish to opt for the lower prices, however. Read More Netflix’s password sharing crackdown is going much better than people expected Stolen ChatGPT accounts for sale on the dark web Geothermal breakthrough uses oil drilling tech to tap renewable energy

Ford Motor Executive Chairman Bill Ford said the United States was not ready yet to compete with China

The overpowered Doom Shotgun finally got nerfed in the Warzone Oct. 11 patch notes so the weapon does not one-shot enemies from absurd distances.

Nvidia Corp on Tuesday became the first chipmaker to join Wall Street's trillion-dollar club dominated by technology heavyweights

Sean Strickland calls Andrew Tate a 'piece of s**t', keep reading to know what happened

Microsoft has been given a non-voting observer seat on OpenAI’s board, following the official return of Sam Altman as the ChatGPT company’s chief. OpenAI reached a deal to have Mr Altman back as the company’s chief executive, just days after it abruptly fired him. Mr Altman said he was looking forward to returning to OpenAI with the support of Microsoft chief Satya Nadella. “Sam Altman is back as CEO, Mira Murati as CTO and Greg Brockman as President. OpenAI has a new initial board,” OpenAI posted on Thursday on X. “I have never been more excited about the future. I am extremely grateful for everyone’s hard work in an unclear and unprecedented situation, and I believe our resilience and spirit set us apart in the industry,” Mr Altman said in a memo to employees. The addition of Microsoft, which has heavily invested in OpenAI, to its board as a non-voting observer means the software giant will get more access to view the company’s progress. It will, however, not have an official vote on its decisions. Mr Altman’s return also resolves some of the uncertainties around the non-profit company and its leadership. “The best interests of the company and the mission always come first. It is clear that there were real misunderstandings between me and members of the board,” the returning chief said in his memo. “For my part, it is incredibly important to learn from this experience and apply those learnings as we move forward as a company,” he said. “I welcome the board’s independent review of all recent events.” With three of the board members who ousted Mr Altman now gone, the company said its new board will consist of former Salesforce co-chief Bret Taylor, who will be OpenAI chairman, former treasury secretary Larry Summers and Quora boss Adam D’Angelo. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who voted to remove Mr Altman and later changed position to push for his return, will also exit the board, the company said. Greg Brockman, who quit the company amid the chaos last week, is returning to his previous role as the company’s president, OpenAI said. “Our research roadmap is clear; this was a wonderfully focusing time. I share the excitement you all feel; we will turn this crisis into an opportunity,” Mr Altman told employees. Read More Inside OpenAI’s bizarre boardroom battle with the man ‘who can see the future’ Microsoft stock just hit an all-time high amid OpenAI chaos Microsoft chief hints Sam Altman may return as OpenAI staff demand board resignation OpenAI staff ‘threaten to quit over ousting of Sam Altman’ Microsoft’s new AI tool cleans up messy backgrounds in video calls Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away

A Delaware judge has refused to dismiss a shareholder lawsuit alleging that Facebook officers and directors violated both the law and their fiduciary duties in failing for years to protect the privacy of user data

Adobe Inc. provided a sales outlook that met analysts’ expectations, but disappointed investors who expected demand for the

OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, have formed a new group to prepare for the “catastrophic risks” of artificial intelligence. The “Preparedness” team will aim to “track, evaluate, forecast and protect against catastrophic risks”, the company said. Those risks include artificial intelligence being used to craft powerful persuasive messages, to endanger cybersecurity and to be used in nuclear and other kinds of weapons. The team will also work against “autonomous replication and adaptation”, or ARA – the danger that an AI would gain the power to be able to copy and change itself. “We believe that frontier AI models, which will exceed the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing models, have the potential to benefit all of humanity,” OpenAI said. “But they also pose increasingly severe risks.” Avoiding those dangerous situations will mean building frameworks to predict and then protect people against the dangerous capabilities of new artificial intelligence systems, OpenAI said. That will be one of the tasks of the new team. At the same time, OpenAI launched a new “Preparedness Challenge”. That encourages people to think about “the most unique, while still being probable, potentially catastrophic misuse of the model” such as using it to shut down power grids, for instance. Particularly good submissions of ideas for the malicious uses of artificial intelligence will win credits to use on OpenAI’s tools, and the company suggested that some of those people could be hired to the team. It will be led by Aleksander Madry, an AI expert from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, OpenAI said. OpenAI revealed the new team as part of its contribution to the UK’s AI Safety Summit, which will happen next week. OpenAI was one of a range of companies that have made commitments on how it will ensure the safe use of artificial intelligence. Read More WhatsApp update will change how you log in forever ChatGPT creator quietly changes core values from ‘thoughtful’ to ‘scrappy’