List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

Google is temporarily disabling live traffic conditions on its mapping service apps, Google Maps and Waze, in Israel, the tech company confirmed Monday, as the country prepares for a potential ground invasion into Gaza.

SINGAPORE Cyrptocurrency bitcoin leapt as much as 14% to a 2-1/2 year high of $34,283 in early Asia

Elon Musk has been accused of acting like “a little baby” and being “almost in tears” during an earnings call in which the billionaire struck a pessimistic tone about the economy. The Tesla CEO’s behaviour on the third-quarter earnings call was slammed as “terrible” by financial analyst Kevin Paffrath and the electric automaker’s stock price dropped 15 per cent in the two days following it. “For a leader to cry about the economy rather than funnelling that and coming up with a plan is pathetic,” Mr Paffrath, who owns Tesla stock, told Yahoo Finance. And he added: “We need to know the light is at the end of the tunnel rather than hearing a complaining CEO who’s not actually providing that path.” Tesla reported weaker-than-expected third-quarter results, with both earnings per share and revenue of $23.35bn falling short of analysts’ estimates, according to Yahoo Finance. But despite the issues as of Friday, the company’s share price was up 96 per cent year-to-date. Mr Paffrath, a YouTuber with 1.9 million followers, was not the only analyst to criticise Mr Musk’s performance. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives described the call as a “mini disaster” during which a “cautious” Mr Musk downplayed expectations for the Cybertruck and focused on high interest rates. “We dug our own grave with Cybertruck” Mr Musk said on the call, calling it a “great product” but also said he wanted to “temper expectations” for the long-awaited pickup truck. “Demand is off the charts. We have over 1 million people who have reserved the car, so it’s not a demand issue,” he said. “But we have to make it, and we need to make it a price that people can afford, insanely difficult things.” The Independent has reached out to Tesla for comment. Read More Slack to retire its status account on Elon Musk’s X Tesla’s profits dip as Musk goes on rant about staff working from home Elon Musk’s X may charge some users $1 a year to post on platform

Apple could be about to launch a host of new MacBooks. The company is planning a major event next week at which it will update at least some of its Macs, according to a new report. The most likely new computer is an update to the 24-inch iMac, which was first released in April 2021 and has not been updated since. But Apple could also be planning new versions of the MacBook Pro. Apple is preparing for a Mac-related launch event that could happen on either Monday, 30 October or the following day, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. He cited sources with knowledge of Apple’s plans, but also noted that stock for Apple’s existing Macs is running low. That 24-inch iMac as well as the 13-, 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro all show long waits for delivery in both the online and physical Apple stores, he noted. That can suggest that an update is incoming, as Apple clears out old units before the new ones arrive. The last time that Apple held its results in November came in 2018, when Apple released new iPads and Macs in late October. Apple will also be holding its quarterly results in November this year, Mr Gurman noted. The new reports do not indicate what changes Apple might be planning for the new computers. But the 24-inch iMac has now gone almost three years without an update, and is still using Apple’s old M1 chip, making it the only computer in Apple’s line-up to do so. A new 24-inch iMac would presumably update that processor while presumably making other changes. It is less clear how Apple would update its 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro, which are the very top of its professional line-up. Those received upgrades to Apple’s top-of-the-line M2 processor family in January. Mr Gurman suggested that the computers could also get “minor improvements to displays”. Previous reports have suggested that Apple could be adding more efficient screens to those premium laptops. Read More Apple just released a new Pencil after days of excitement Sadiq Khan, Met Commissioner to ask phone companies to ‘design out’ theft Apple is planning to make a cheaper Vision Pro headset without key features

By Stephen Nellis and Max A. Cherney Nvidia dominates the market for artificial intelligence computing chips. Now it

The discovery of beautiful, ancient rock engravings has been a bitter-sweet experience for experts in Brazil’s Amazon. On the one hand, the carvings offer an exciting insight into the first people who inhabited the region. On the other, it is a worrying signal that the Negro River, which runs through the region, may soon cease to exist. An extreme drought in parts of the rainforest has led to a dramatic drop in river water levels – with the Negro’s flow reaching its lowest level for 121 years last week. The drop exposed dozens of normally submerged rock formations featuring carvings of human forms that may date back some 2,000 years. Livia Ribeiro, a longtime resident of the Amazon's largest city, Manaus, said she heard about the rock engravings from friends and wanted to check them out. "I thought it was a lie,” she told the AFP news agency. “I had never seen this and I've lived in Manaus for 27 years.” She admitted that whilst scientists and members of the public were delighted at the discovery, they acknowledged that it also raised unsettling questions. "We come, we look at (the engravings) and we think they are beautiful. But at the same time, it is worrying,” she said. “I also think about whether this river will exist in 50 or 100 years.” Drought in Brazil's Amazon has drastically reduced river levels in recent weeks, affecting a region that depends on a labrynth of waterways for transportation and supplies. The Brazilian government has sent emergency aid to the area, where normally bustling riverbanks are dry and littered with stranded boats. According to experts, the dry season has worsened this year due to El Niño, an irregular climate pattern over the Pacific Ocean that disrupts normal weather, adding to the effect of climate change. Jaime Oliveira, of the Brazilian Institute of Historical Heritage (Iphan), said the engravings comprise an archaeological site of "great relevance”. They are located at a site known as Praia das Lajes and were first seen in 2010, during another period of drought (which was not as severe as the current one). Most of the engravings are of human faces, some of them rectangular and others oval, with smiles or grim expressions. "The site expresses emotions, feelings, it is an engraved rock record, but it has something in common with current works of art," Oliveira said. For Beatriz Carneiro, historian and member of Iphan, Praia das Lajes has an "inestimable" value in understanding the first people who inhabited the region, a field still little explored. "Unhappily it is now reappearing with the worsening of the drought," she said. "Having our rivers back (flooded) and keeping the engravings submerged will help preserve them, even more than our work." 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

(Reuters) -Tesla said on Monday its capital expenditure for 2023 would exceed the $7 billion to $9 billion target it

PARIS France's government is not considering nationalising IT consulting group Atos, a finance ministry source said on Monday

BEIJING Electric vehicle brand Beyonca, backed by Renault and Dongfeng Motor, said on Monday it signed a memorandum

Tinder users can now invite friends to view and suggest potential matches on the dating app as part of a new “matchmaking” feature. Called Matchmaker, the new tool enables a user to give access to their possible matches to up to 15 friends in a 24-hour period, who can view profiles and suggest possible matches even without a Tinder account, but cannot message others on the user’s behalf. Once the Matchmaker session ends, Tinder users will have the opportunity to review the profiles of their matchmakers’ recommendations and then make a final decision on them. The new feature is being rolled out in the UK and a range of other countries in the coming months. The dating app said the feature built on a common usage of the platform, where Tinder users hand over their phone to a friend to matchmake, and bring it directly into the platform. “For years, singles have asked their friends to help find their next match on Tinder, and now we’re making that so easy with Tinder Matchmaker,” Melissa Hobley, Tinder’s chief marketing officer said. “Tinder Matchmaker brings your circle of trust into your dating journey and helps you see the possibilities you might be overlooking from the perspective of those closest to you.” Read More Google and Meta withdraw from upcoming Web Summit ‘Game-changing’ facial recognition technology catches prolific shoplifters Facial recognition firm Clearview AI overturns UK data privacy fine

By David Shepardson WASHINGTON The U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday it was naming 31 regional tech hubs

The name “core” suggests something hard and fixed but, it turns out, the Earth’s core is leaking. That is, at least, according to a team of top scientists, who drew the conclusion after analysing 62-million-old Arctic rocks. Geochemists from the California Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution detected record concentrations of helium 3 (3He) and helium 4 (4He) isotopes in the rocks, which suggest a slow trickle up from the very heart of our planet. They believe there could be reserves of the elusive gas buried some 2,900km underground. Helium is a surprisingly rare element on the Earth’s surface and experts have yet to establish just how much of it remains trapped deep beneath our feet. However, the new discovery has provided them with a fresh insight into the most mysterious region of our world. Understanding the presence of these helium isotopes could illuminate key processes in the core, such as how the Earth generated its life-protecting magnetic field. Most helium in the universe dates back to the Big Bang which occurred 13.8 billion years ago. The Earth swallowed up some of this as an infant planet, but mostly burped it all away during its 4.6 billion-year-long formation, as Science Alert reports. This means that any traces of helium found in volcanic rock – such as the samples unearthed in the Arctic – are believed to come either from pockets of mantle that are yet to release their helium, or from a vast, slow-leaking reserve. Basaltic lavas on Canada's Baffin Island contain some of the world's highest ratios of 3He to 4He, which geologists believe indicates that the gas's presence is not to do with the atmosphere, but rather the sign of deeper terrestrial origins. Several years ago, geochemist Forrest Horton uncovered helium isotope ratios of up to 50 times that of atmospheric levels in samples collected from Baffin's lava fields. This unusual concentration was also detected in lavas collected from Iceland. Horton and his team wondered if the helium in both samples may have derived from an ancient reservoir deep within the crust. And, it seems, their hunch may have been right. Their latest analysis – including specimens of the mineral olivine taken from dozens of sites across Baffin and surrounding islands – has delivered the highest ratio of 3He to 4He ever recorded in volcanic rock – measuring nearly 70 times anything previously detected in the atmosphere, as Science Alert notes. The team also considered ratios of other isotopes in order to rule out factors that may have altered the helium’s composition post-volcanic eruption, and found that the ratio of isotopes in the gas neon also matched the conditions present during the Earth’s formation. Despite advances in geology, the Earth’s core remains a great mystery, given that we have no way of directly exploring its core. The deepest hole humans have ever dug – branded the "entrance to hell" – extended an impressive 12,263m (40,230ft) down, but even that doesn’t come close to breaking through the crust to the layers beneath. Still, thanks to techniques like seismic tomography – which analyses how waves of energy travel through different materials during earthquakes – we’ve been able to map out the world’s interior. And carefully crafted simulations, based on the thermodynamics and pressures of our planet’s innards, suggest reserves of noble gases (like helium and neon) trapped in the core could have been protected as the Earth grew before seeping into the surrounding mantle over time. If the core is leaking, this could teach us a thing or two about how planets like ours form and how life, eventually, emerges. 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