Author: GT

Open AI CEO Sam Altman speaks during a talk session with SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son at an event titled “Transforming Business through AI” in Tokyo, on Feb. 3, 2025.Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty ImagesWith Anthropic gaining momentum in the booming AI market, OpenAI sent a memo to investors this week slamming its chief rival for “operating on a meaningfully smaller curve,” and characterizing the company as compute constrained. OpenAI said it’s planning to have 30 gigawatts of compute by 2030, while it expects Anthropic to have roughly 7 to 8 gigawatts by the end of 2027, according to the memo,…

The war in Iran has hammered global oil markets, with gas prices in the U.S. spiking significantly. Amid the rise in transportation costs, Amazon has instituted a new 3.5% fuel surcharge for sellers that use its distribution network. The policy has the potential to inflict significant new costs on the untold merchants that rely on the e-commerce giant to sell their products. Amazon told TechCrunch that the surcharge would be in place for the foreseeable future, although the company said it will continue to evaluate a potential policy shift as market conditions evolve. The news was originally reported by Bloomberg.…

Remember the iPod? It’s making a quiet comeback.Four years after Apple killed off its digital music player, secondhand sales are surging. It’s fueled in part by young people interested not just in its retro looks but a desire to listen to music in a focused way and with playlists not determined by algorithms.“There’s a growing trend, particularly amongst younger users, to mitigate the ease with which they can be distracted by smartphones, often driven by mental health and well-being concerns,” said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight. “Having a dedicated music device, such as an iPod, is a good…

A general view of Navigator Terminals, an Oil storage depot along the River Thames on March 10, 2026 in London, England.Dan Kitwood | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesThe fluctuating price of dated Brent, the global benchmark for real-world barrels of crude, has prompted energy analysts warn to that acute stress in the physical oil market shows little sign of abating amid worries over a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East.As energy market participants continue to monitor shipping disruption through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, an unprecedented gap has emerged between dated Brent and front-month Brent futures, suggesting supplies…

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s logo is seen in the background beside a printed circuit board. Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on Friday posted another quarter of record revenue driven by demand for AI chips.For January to March, the world’s largest chipmaker reported revenue of 1.13 trillion New Taiwan dollars ($35.6 billion), exceeding analyst forecasts of NT$1.12 trillion, according to LSEG’s compiled estimates. That marks a 35% year-on-year increase.For March alone, TSMC reported a 45.2% year-on-year rise in revenue to NT$415.2 billion. The chip giant is benefiting from sustained demand for advanced semiconductors from its key…

When Brett Levenson left Apple in 2019 to lead business integrity at Facebook, the social media giant was in the thick of the Cambridge Analytica fallout. At the time, he thought he could simply fix Facebook’s content moderation problem with better technology.  The problem, he quickly learned, ran deeper than technology. Human reviewers were expected to memorize a 40-page policy document that had been machine-translated into their language, he said. Then they had about 30 seconds per piece of flagged content to decide not just whether that  content violated the rules, but what to do about it: block it, ban…

CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — For some evangelical Christians, faith is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that concept to a new level.Users of the platform can join video calls with an avatar of Jesus generated by artificial intelligence. Like other religious AI tools on the market, it offers words of prayer and encouragement in various languages. With the occasional glitch, it remembers previous conversations and speaks through not-quite-synced lips.“You do feel a little accountable to the AI,” CEO Chris Breed said. “They’re your friend. You’ve made an…

Muscles are remarkably effective systems for generating controlled force, and engineers developing hardware for robots or prosthetics have long struggled to create analogs that can approach their unique combination of strength, rapid response, scalability, and control. But now, researchers at the MIT Media Lab and Politecnico di Bari in Italy have developed artificial muscle fibers that come closer to matching many of these qualities.Like the fibers that bundle together to form biological muscles, these fibers can be arranged in different configurations to meet the demands of a given task. Unlike conventional robotic actuation systems, they are compliant enough to interface…

Trucks and tractors block O’Connell Street in the centre of the city, as protests continue for a third day against the rising cost of fuel due to the Middle East crisis, in central Dublin on April 9, 2026. (Photo by Paul Faith / AFP via Getty Images)Paul Faith | Afp | Getty ImagesProtests around fuel prices in Ireland are entering their fourth day, with three of the country’s main refineries and terminals blockaded, and traffic in Dublin at a standstill.The demonstrations have been primarily instigated by farmers, agricultural contractors and road haulage operators, who are upset with the government’s response to the…

The European Union’s cybersecurity agency said Thursday that a recent hack and data breach at the EU’s executive body was the work of a cybercriminal group known as TeamPCP.  In a new report, CERT-EU also reported that the hackers stole around 92 gigabytes of compressed data from a compromised Amazon Web Services (AWS) account used by the bloc’s executive, the European Commission, which included personal data containing names, email addresses, and the contents of emails.  The breach affected the cloud infrastructure of the Commission’s Europa.eu platform, which member states use to host websites and publications of the bloc’s institutions and…