Author: GT

Hallways, generally speaking, are not places you want to be in the movies. You can be just strolling down one when, all of a sudden, elevator doors open up and a river of blood comes flowing out.They are often corridors of violence — the site of the hammer rampage of “Oldboy” or the rotating fisticuffs of “Inception” — where narrow walls buffer and condense the action. Or they can focus a character’s direction. To set Lee Marvin’s appropriately named Walker on his obsessive path in the revenge thriller “Point Blank,” John Boorman just needed to send him and his ominously…

Oil prices plunged Wednesday after President Donald Trump agreed to suspend attacks on Iran for two weeks in exchange for Tehran allowing safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures with May delivery fell about 18% to $92.50 per barrel by 8:48 a.m. ET. International benchmark Brent crude futures with June delivery lost more than 16% to $91.25 per barrel. The WTI could log its worst daily performance since April 27, 2020 if it settles more than 14.52% lower.Trump said the two-week ceasefire was subject to Iran agreeing to a complete, immediate and safe opening of the…

With Alphabet poised to earn potentially $100 billion or more from its 2015 bet on Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the explosion of artificial intelligence has opened the door to more startup investments. “You know SpaceX, Anthropic and so on so, I think now with the AI shift, there are more opportunities on which we can deploy capital in a good way and so we are doing that,” Pichai said, in a conversation with Stripe co-founder John Collison posted on Tuesday. Google has long been in the startup investing game through its early-stage venture group GV and…

Apple’s iPads come with built-in productivity tools like Notes, Calendar, and Reminders, but if you’d like to explore new ways to maximize productivity and organize your life, there are many apps out there to help you. Although the iPad started off as a device that could be used to stream content or browse the web on the go, Apple has essentially turned its iPads into computers that can handle a variety of different tasks for personal, work, and school use. As a result, there are numerous apps to help you do things like create a single place to organize your…

O’SMACH, Cambodia (AP) — I have often used the word industrial-scale in my own writing to describe the scam compounds that dot this region in Southeast Asia. But the weight of that phrase truly sunk in at the O’Smach Resort complex that we visited on Tuesday. Thailand’s military, which conducted a tour for the media, said that the whole area encompasses around 197 acres (80 hectares), equivalent to 150 American football fields. It wasn’t my first time at a scam center, but its scale dwarfed anything I had seen before.From my base in the region, I have followed this issue…

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the carrier will “meaningfully reduce” its capacity growth plans in the near term as fuel costs soar, solidifying a pullback from airlines that have been roiled by a historic run-up in jet fuel due to the Middle East war.Shares of the company were up more than 11% in early trading, extending gains U.S. carriers saw after oil prices dropped.Delta on Wednesday forecast adjusted per-share earnings of $1 to $1.50 in the second quarter, compared with the $1.41 a share analysts were expecting, with revenue up in the “low-teens” percentage points compared with a…

Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesAlibaba and China Telecom are launching a data center in southern China powered by the e-commerce giant’s own chips, as the country ramps up its focus on homegrown AI infrastructure.The facility, announced on Tuesday, will feature 10,000 of Alibaba’s Zhenwu semiconductors which are designed for AI training and inferencing along with the ability to support AI models the size of hundreds of billions of parameters. These are among some of the largest models out there and underscore how China’s biggest tech players are advancing their own AI semiconductor technology as Beijing intensifies its push…

Anthropic has filed documents to create a new political action committee — a sign that, like its peers, the AI lab is committing significant resources toward influencing policy and regulation. AnthroPAC plans to make contributions to both parties during the midterms, including to current D.C. lawmakers and rising political candidates. The PAC will be funded by voluntary employee contributions capped at $5,000, Bloomberg reports. A statement of organization filed with the Federal Election Commission includes a signature by Allison Rossi, Anthropic’s treasurer. TechCrunch reached out to Anthropic for more information. AI companies, which are comrades and competitors in a new…

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish lawmakers kicked off a debate Tuesday on a draft law package that includes restricting access to social media platforms for children under 15, making Turkey the latest country to seek measures to protect young people from dangerous online activity. If it becomes law, the bill would force social media platforms to install age‑verification systems, provide parental control tools and require companies to rapidly respond to content deemed harmful. It’s unclear how long the parliament debate will last. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ’s government says the proposal aims to mitigate the online risks to children’s safety…

A handful of OpenAI executives are transitioning into new roles, according to a report from Bloomberg. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the personnel changes to TechCrunch. CEO of AGI development Fidji Simo announced in a memo that Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s COO, has a new job leading “special projects,” which will involve “complex deals and investments across the company.” He will report directly to CEO Sam Altman. Denise Dresser, the former Slack CEO who recently joined OpenAI as chief revenue officer, will take over some of Lightcap’s commercial duties. NEW: OpenAI’s Fidji Simo announced exec changes to staff today: she is taking…