Tech
Japanese team launches research to make living on moon reality
A Japanese university and construction company have partnered on research to develop a lunar habitat capable of generating artificial gravity, enabling people to live on the moon under conditions similar to those on Earth. Kyoto University and Kajima Corp aim to construct a ground-based prototype of the "Neo Lunar Glass,"… Read
Google counters bid by U.S. to force sale of Chrome
Google late Friday countered a U.S. call to sell its Chrome browser, suggesting a judge address antitrust concerns by barring the firm from making favorable treatment of its software a condition of licensing. Google filed a 12-page proposed order banning the internet giant from requiring favorable distribution or treatment of… Read
Ex-OpenAI engineer who raised legal concerns about the technology he helped build has died
Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26. Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting… Read
Ireland embraced data centers that the AI boom needs. Now they're consuming too much of its energy
Dozens of massive data centers humming at the outskirts of Dublin are consuming more electricity than all of the urban homes in Ireland and starting to wear out the warm welcome that brought them here. Now, a country that made itself a computing factory for Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and… Read
AI-based app helping Japanese farmers forecast crop pests
Hiroaki Asakura, a farmer in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, learned how to be a green thumb from his father. This meant knowing the seasons for planting crops and what pesticides to apply and when. But climate change has made reliance on instinct a dangerous game. To deal with today's reality,… Read
TikTok's rise from fun app to U.S. security concern
As the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to uphold a law that could get TikTok banned in the United States, here is a look at the rise of the video-snippet social app. Genesis In 2016, Beijing-based ByteDance launched Douyin, a short video sharing app, making it available only in China.… Read
A new neutrino detector in China aims to spot mysterious ghost particles lurking around us
Underneath a granite hill in southern China, a massive detector is nearly complete that will sniff out the mysterious ghost particles lurking around us. The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory will soon begin the difficult task of spotting neutrinos: tiny cosmic particles with a mind-bogglingly small mass. The detector is one… Read
Japan, India startups to study laser-equipped satellites to tackle space debris
Space startups in Japan and India have agreed to jointly study using laser-equipped satellites to remove debris from orbit, an experimental approach to the increasingly imminent problem of orbital congestion. Tokyo-based Orbital Lasers and Indian robotics company InspeCity said they would study business opportunities for in-space services such as de-orbiting… Read
What does Big Tech hope to gain from warming up to Trump?
In a string of visits, dinners, calls, monetary pledges and social media overtures, big tech chiefs — including Apple's Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — have joined a parade of business and world leaders in trying to improve their standing with President-elect Donald… Read
U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear TikTok ban case
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to hear TikTok's appeal of a law that would force its Chinese owner to sell the online video-sharing platform or shut it down. The top court scheduled oral arguments in the case for January 10, nine days before TikTok faces a ban unless… Read
