Executives from the likes of Volkswagen AG and Ericsson AB are calling on the European Union to remove

India began exploring the Moon's surface with a rover on Thursday, a day after it became the first nation to land a craft near the...

India has a particularly daunting climate challenge. The world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, the country will need

YouTuber MrBeast was astonished by FaZe Clan's unbelievably low market value of 'only' 17 million and sugggests a change in ownership

Tristan Tate, who had a successful career as a professional kickboxer, has offered to train Dr Disrespect

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 12, 2023--

Mark Zuckerberg’s big bet on the metaverse has now lost $40 billion – and the company intends to lose even more. The huge figures were revealed as part of Meta’s latest results, which generally showed a strong rise in advertising revenue. But they also showed an increase in expenses at the company, with the development not only of the metaverse but also artificial intelligence and legal fees. Meta has been dramatically cutting costs and laying off staff. But at the same time it has been spending heavily on some projects, such as the metaverse, in the face of criticism from those who suggest that the bet is unlikely to pay off. That work on the metaverse is done by the company’s Reality Labs unit, which is responsible for developing technology like augmented reality glasses. It reported sales of $276 million, down from $452 million in the same quarter last year. The unit lost $3.7 billion in the second quarter, putting it on track to have far higher costs than the $5 billion annual target set out in a widely circulated investor note in the fall. The unit has lost more than $40 billion since 2021, including $13.7 billion last year. Meta said it expected Reality Labs operating losses to “increase meaningfully” in 2024 as the company continued to invest in augmented and virtual reality and “scale our ecosystem.” Zuckerberg had previously said Meta would “pace” investments in the division after 2023. He told investors he understood why many of them would feel discomfort over such a long-term bet. But the positive results across the company pushed Meta shares up 7.5 per cent. “We continue to see strong engagement across our apps and we have the most exciting roadmap I’ve seen in a while with Llama 2, Threads, Reels, new AI products in the pipeline, and the launch of Quest 3 this fall,” Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said. Meta’s second-quarter revenue grew 11% to $32 billion in the quarter ended June 30, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $31.12 billion. Ad revenue rose 12% in the quarter, faster than growth at Google, where ad revenue rose 3%. Adjusted earnings per share of $2.98 topped Wall Street targets of $2.91, according to data from Refinitiv. The social media giant has been climbing back from a bruising 2022, buoyed by hype around emerging AI technology and an austerity drive in which it has shed around 21,000 employees since last fall. The company’s shares have more than doubled in value this year as a result. Advertisers are reinforcing those gains by pumping money into digital ads again after months of muted spending, heartened by signs that the economy may overcome a bout of high inflation without suffering a major meltdown. Brands are hedging their bets, however, and sticking with tried and true platforms. That helps Meta and Alphabet while punishing smaller players like Snap, which reported disappointing sales on Tuesday. Meta’s revenue forecast did not specify whether the figure includes any sales that might come from the recently launched Threads app, which does not yet have ads. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More Elon Musk’s ‘X’ is already trademarked by Mark Zuckerberg How Mark Zuckerberg’s new ChatGPT rival could lead to ‘obscene’ AI Meta unveils its ChatGPT rival Llama Here’s how to claim your share of $725m settlement in Facebook’s privacy lawsuit Elon Musk forces firms to pay X $1,000 to keep gold ticks Slack has stopped working

Two of the biggest names in YouTube have been feuding, with viewers surprised to see there was beef between MrBeast and Jacksepticeye. It comes following the circulation of a clip on social media, which saw Jacksepticeye asked questions about his fellow YouTuber. The footage shows the Irish 33-year-old hooked up to a lie detector, while giving his honest opinions on MrBeast – the biggest name on the video streaming platform. When asked about his content, Jacksepticeye said that MrBeast "ruined YouTube" because he made videos which were all about "views, money, and popularity." TommyInnit also appears in the video, and when he asked if MrBeast ruined YouTube, Jacksepticeye replied: “Yes. Because it became more about views, money, and popularity than it did about having fun. If he had fun doing those videos, they'd be longer. We'd see the fun." The clip quickly went viral, and MrBeast replied to him by taking issue with his comments. "So, I, 'ruined YouTube' because I didn’t buy a mansion and sports cars and instead reinvested my $ into making content/ocused on doing good and inspiring kids to help people?" he wrote on Twitter. "'If he had fun the videos would be longer.' What does that even mean, lol? You think I’d give up every hour of my life for 14 years if I didn’t have fun?” He went on to say: "This clip is insanely disrespectful IMO (in my opinion) and obviously there is so much I could say about his content but I’ll just take the punches and be the bigger man. Sigh." The disagreement understandably raised a lot of eyebrows among fans, but it now looks like the pair have managed to patch things up. They both posted on Twitter, with an exchange that seemed to suggest they’d been chatting privately and were no longer unhappy with each other. MrBeast posted a smiling emoji and said: “We messaged, we’re Gucci now”, followed by a smiling emoji. Jacksepticeye then replied to the message with a cowboy and thumbs-up emoji. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

A number of huge tunnels that were discovered in South America at the turn of the century may have been made by giant sloths. At the turn of the century, professor of geology, Heinrich Frank, spotted a strange hole on a highway in Brazil, and crawled inside. There, he realised the tunnel was 4.5 meters (15 feet) long. He also found a collection of giant claw marks on the ceiling. “There’s no geological process in the world that produces long tunnels with a circular or elliptical cross-section, which branch and rise and fall, with claw marks on the walls,” Frank told Discover, adding he's "seen dozens of caves that have inorganic origins, and in these cases, it’s very clear that digging animals had no role in their creation.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The tunnel, along with many others that he and others discovered in Brazil and Argentina, are thought to be made by extinct giant sloths 8-10,000 years ago that were around the size of an African elephant. In the Rio Grande do Sul area, Frank and his team found over 1,500 tunnels made by these sloths beasts, with the longest stretching for 609 meters (2,000 feet) and standing at 1.8 meters (6 feet) tall. Goodness. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

BEIJING China will allow road trials of some intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs) in designated city areas, the industry

The Federal Trade Commission is suing Amazon for what it calls a years-long effort to enroll consumers without consent into its Prime program and making it difficult for them to cancel their subscriptions

South Africa’s transition away from the dirtiest fossil fuel has been marred by the botched approach to the