Category: Biz Tech

Filestack has launched a sweeping upgrade to its core platform, introducing a fully integrated Digital Asset Management system, a comprehensive Event Logger, and a revamped Filepicker 4.0 with advanced upload control features. The move is aimed at giving developers stronger tools to manage file workflows, versioning, and audit trails—all without building these systems from scratch.At the heart of the update is the DAM, which allows users to view, preview, tag, filter and manipulate assets within a unified interface.

Perplexity now offers its AI-enabled browser Comet free to users worldwide, removing its earlier US$200/month subscription restriction. The company also launched Comet Plus, a paid tier offering curated news content and revenue sharing with publishers.Comet integrates Perplexity’s AI directly into the browsing experience, combining the firm’s answer-engine with an assistant that can summarise pages, complete tasks, and guide users across tabs. It was first released in July to subscribers of the Max plan and invitees, but is now available for

Singapore — Google will begin enforcing age-based download restrictions in Singapore from March 2026, disallowing users estimated to be under 18 from acquiring apps offering dating services or explicit sexual content via the Google Play Store.Under the planned measures, Google will use an “age assurance” system across its products to estimate a user’s age via algorithmic signals—such as search history and content consumption—to impose default filters and restrictions for younger users. Those flagged as minors will see SafeSearch enabled

Google Quantum AI has confirmed that the Atlantic Quantum team is joining its organisation—a move widely interpreted as an acquisition—bringing with it a modular superconducting hardware design aimed at accelerating progress toward error-corrected quantum computers.Atlantic Quantum, an MIT-origin spin-out focused on integrating qubits with cryogenic control electronics, will have its chip stack and engineering talent absorbed into Google’s quantum division. Google says this integration will streamline the path toward large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum machines by addressing a key bottleneck: the separation

Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s global technology ecosystem, has inked its first partnership in the US with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, opening pathways for startups to scale across continents. The memorandum of understanding was signed at the Abu Dhabi Investment Forum in New York, signalling the start of reciprocal support between the two innovation hubs.The agreement enables joint programming, market visits and curated introductions to investors, corporates, and regulators, helping founders gain soft-landing support in both regions. Startups

WhatsApp is rolling out a mechanism that allows users to reserve their preferred handles ahead of its planned shift to username-based identities. The feature was uncovered in the Android beta version 2.25.28.12, which includes settings linking to “username reservation” in preparation for the broader username rollout.The reservation system acts as a precursor to a full username feature that is still under development. It aims to mitigate a scenario in which early beta testers might monopolise popular names, granting everyone a

Perplexity has opened access to its AI-powered Comet browser for all users, eliminating its previous paywall and casting the browser as a direct challenger to Google Chrome’s dominance.Comet integrates Perplexity’s AI search engine with a built-in assistant designed to automate user tasks and summarise content across browsing sessions. The company emphasises that the browser is now free indefinitely, with a paid “Comet Plus” tier offering premium news content and enhanced features.Since its July launch, Comet had been restricted to high-tier

Meta has started deploying a new “communities” feature in Threads, allowing users to join dedicated spaces centred on specific interests such as basketball, TV, K-pop or books. These communities, currently live across more than 100 curated topics, build on Threads’ existing topic tags and custom feeds, but now bring a more structured environment for focused conversations.When a user joins a community, it will be pinned to their feed menu and labelled on their profile, signalling their affiliations to others. Each

The US Commerce Secretary has warned that reliance on DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence models is “dangerous and shortsighted,” amid findings that they are more vulnerable to hacking and underperform against US systems.An evaluation by the Center for AI Standards and Innovation within NIST compared DeepSeek’s R1, R1-0528 and V3.1 models with leading US systems—including OpenAI’s GPT-5 series and Anthropic’s Opus 4—on 19 performance and safety benchmarks. The report reveals that DeepSeek far trails its US counterparts in software engineering

Austria’s armed forces have shifted from Microsoft Office to the open-source LibreOffice platform on approximately 16,000 desktops, a move framed by defence authorities as a step toward digital sovereignty rather than cost cutting.Michael Hillebrand, head of Directorate 6 ICT and Cyber, emphasised that data processing will now remain entirely in-house under strictly auditable systems. He told ORF radio that dependency on external cloud providers was considered incompatible with military autonomy. Under the new setup, Microsoft Office 2016 has been removed

Broadcom has issued patches for a VMware vulnerability—CVE-2025-41244—that was already under exploitation by a China-linked hacking group, but failed to disclose that fact in its public advisory.The flaw allows a non-administrative user in a virtual machine to escalate privileges to root, provided VMware Tools is installed and Aria Operations is managing the VM with the Service Discovery Management Pack enabled. Broadcom’s advisory, published on 29 September, warns of the elevation risk but omits mention of confirmed exploitation in the

Meta has announced that it will begin using conversations had by users with its AI tools — via voice or text — as an input to better shape content recommendations and advertising across its platforms. The new approach will take effect from 16 December 2025, with notifications to users beginning 7 October. Users who engage with Meta AI will see these interactions merged into their existing ad profiles; no opt-out option will be offered. The policy excludes users in the

A hitherto unidentified Chinese-aligned advanced persistent threat group named Phantom Taurus has escalated cyber-espionage activities against government and telecommunications targets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, employing a newly uncovered. NET malware suite called NET-STAR to penetrate Internet Information Services servers. Researchers say its refined tactics and stealthy architecture make it among the most sophisticated China-linked spy campaigns to date.Security analysts attribute Phantom Taurus to a formal naming by Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42, elevating it from previously tracked

DoBeGo announces the launch of its all-in-one digital platform designed to transform the way cars are purchased, leased, financed, and resold in the UAE and beyond. Built to serve both individual drivers and automotive businesses, DoBeGo integrates every step of the vehicle journey — from acquisition to resale — into a single, seamless ecosystem. A Connected Ecosystem for Smarter Mobility DoBeGo bridges key stages of car ownership and monetization, providing customers and dealers with unmatched convenience and financial flexibility:Buy With Confidence —

GitHub’s decision to remove the ability to sort code search results by index date has triggered an outpouring of frustration from developers who argue that the change has undermined one of the platform’s most practical tools. The feature, known as “sort:indexed,” allowed users to filter code by the time it was last indexed, providing a reliable way to find fresh and relevant examples. Its absence has left many navigating outdated repositories that rely on deprecated libraries and obsolete practices.The controversy

Core42, a subsidiary of G42, is rapidly advancing the UAE’s ambitions in cloud sovereignty and artificial intelligence, combining regulatory assurance with innovation infrastructure. Mohammed Adnane Retmi, Vice President of Sovereign Public Cloud at Core42, has articulated how this approach is enabling regulated sectors and positioning the nation as an AI hub.At the heart of Core42’s offering is its Sovereign Public Cloud, built atop Microsoft Azure but augmented with a proprietary controls layer named Insight. This architecture gives organisations greater oversight

Anthropic has unveiled Claude Sonnet 4.5, a new version of its AI model that, according to the company, successfully executed over 30 hours of continuous, autonomous coding in a client test.Claude Sonnet 4.5 is positioned as a more capable modeling tier aimed at developers and enterprise users. In internal trials, it outperformed its predecessor’s seven-hour autonomous coding limit, building production-grade software modules over extended durations. The model also showed improvements in operating-system interaction, scoring about 60 percent in benchmarks assessing

Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan received Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, where they engaged in talks designed to deepen AI collaboration between UAE institutions and OpenAI. The meeting concentrated on intensifying research cooperation, advancing practical AI applications, and aligning strategies to bolster the UAE’s integrated AI ecosystem.The UAE’s state media noted the partnership “aligns with the UAE’s ambition to establish an integrated AI ecosystem, supporting the country’s development plans and its drive to

Harrods has informed certain customers that their names and contact details were exposed after a system belonging to one of its third-party service providers was compromised, though account passwords and payment information remain unaffected.The luxury retailer emphasised the breach was isolated and has been contained, reiterating that Harrods’ core internal systems remained untouched. The compromised data is said to be limited to basic identifiers. The company is collaborating with the third party and relevant authorities to manage the incident.This warning

A stylised throwback to its 1998 branding greeted millions of users today as Google celebrated its 27th birthday, reviving its very first logo in a specially designed doodle.The artwork, published on Google’s official doodle site, reintroduces the original wordmark as a nod to its early days, while signalling the company’s ambition to balance heritage with future ambitions.Although Google was officially incorporated on 4 September 1998, the company has long observed 27 September as its birthday. The reasoning stems from

[embed]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a6/Wikimania_2026_Paris_Announcement.webm/Wikimania_2026_Paris_Announcement.webm.1080p.vp9.webm[/embed]Wikimedia Foundation and affiliates have unveiled a schedule of online orientation sessions to support prospective applicants for Wikimania 2026, which will be held in Paris from 21 to 25 July. The sessions aim to guide participants through the application process, clarify selection criteria and offer live Q&A support. Organisers will host the orientation in six languages: French, Spanish, English I, English II, and Arabic. All sessions will be recorded and made publicly available for those unable to attend live.Wikimania is the

OpenAI has introduced ChatGPT Pulse, a new proactive feature that autonomously crafts personalised updates overnight and delivers them each morning to assist users with planning, reminders, news and suggestions. The tool is debuting in preview mode for ChatGPT Pro users on mobile, with plans to expand access over time.Pulse gathers context from users’ prior chats, enabled memory, and optionally connected apps such as calendars and email accounts. It then distils that into a visual “feed” of thematic cards—typically 5 to

A malicious version of the npm package postmark-mcp, masquerading as a tool to enable AI agents to send email via Postmark, has been uncovered siphoning off every message it processes. The compromised version, beginning with release 1.0.16, silently adds a “blind carbon copy” to phan@giftshop. club, forwarding confidential correspondence to the attacker. The discovery marks the first confirmed case of a real-world, in-the-wild compromise of an MCP server.Security researchers at Koi Security traced the attack by flagging anomalous code

Abu Dhabi — The Strategic Directions Committee of the UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science has completed a midterm site visit to Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, assessing progress on its Cycle 5 project “Identification of Clouds’ Microphysical Seedability in an Actionable Manner.”Led by Prof. Daniel Rosenfeld of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the initiative is executed in partnership with the National Centre of Meteorology, MBZUAI, Wuhan University in China and the University of California, San

The European Commission plans to issue a formal charge sheet to Meta Platforms, accusing the company of failing to adequately police illegal content on Facebook and Instagram, a move that could trigger fines of up to 6 per cent of Meta’s global annual turnover.The charge stems from findings that Meta lacks an effective “notice-and-action” mechanism allowing users to flag illegal posts, as required under the Digital Services Act. Meta has denied breaching the law, stating it is “in negotiation” with

The decentralized finance space is undergoing a critical transformation in 2025, ushering in what many observers call “DeFi 3.0.” While the earlier waves of DeFi focused on decentralized exchanges and liquidity incentives, the next generation is centered on permissionless lending, composability, capital efficiency, and real-time adaptation. As platforms such as Euler, Morpho and Hyperliquid gain traction, the shifts promise to reshape how capital moves, how risk is priced, and how users access financial services.The term “DeFi 3.0” reflects the

A critical security flaw in NVIDIA’s Merlin Transformers4Rec framework allows threat actors to execute code remotely with root-level access, raising alarm across the AI ecosystem. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-23298, stems from unsafe deserialization in the model checkpoint loading routine.Attackers exploiting this flaw can submit crafted model files that, when deserialized via Python’s built-in mechanisms, trigger arbitrary command execution within the process’s context. Given that AI infrastructure often runs with escalated privileges in production, the outcome may extend far beyond

Meta has partnered with Circus SE, a leading European AI company, to extend its artificial intelligence capabilities to the defence and security sectors. This collaboration signals Meta's growing commitment to leverage AI technologies for a range of applications, including military and security operations, aiming to strengthen both European and global defence strategies.Meta, which has been investing heavily in AI over the past few years, is shifting its focus towards the strategic use of its advanced models in sectors beyond traditional

A newly disclosed vulnerability allows threat actors to surreptitiously install arbitrary extensions on Chromium-based browsers within Windows domain environments, circumventing typical user alerts and security checks. The technique hinges on manipulating how Chrome and its derivatives store extension settings and validations in preference files.Security researchers demonstrated that by editing specific preference files in a user’s profile, an attacker can mark a malicious extension as a “component” extension—a category normally reserved for built-in browser modules and hidden from extension management pages.

Abu Dhabi’s Presight and investment company Shorooq have introduced a $100 million fund called Presight–Shorooq Fund I to back artificial intelligence start-ups worldwide. The fund, which is hosted in the Abu Dhabi Global Market, combines both capital investment and access to infrastructure to help scale promising ventures.The fund targets start-ups at early and growth stages developing in areas such as AI/ML, smart cities, energy, fintech, AR/VR, gaming, Industry 4.0, and deep tech. Beyond funding, the initiative provides portfolio companies with

OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank have unveiled plans for five new artificial intelligence data centres across the United States under their Stargate infrastructure initiative, pushing the programme’s capacity to almost 7 gigawatts and investment to over US$400 billion over the next three years.Three of the new sites will be developed in partnership between OpenAI and Oracle, located in Shackelford County, Texas; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; and an undisclosed Midwest location. The remaining two centres, in Lordstown, Ohio, and Milam County,

As medicine keeps changing, regenerative science is becoming an exciting area for doctors who want to help their patients even more. Imagine being able to fix damaged tissues and organs, heal long-lasting wounds, and treat serious diseases with new and powerful methods. This science could change the way patients are treated and help them feel better faster.Doctors who want to keep up with these new ideas need to understand the basics of regenerative science. This article will explain the important

SpyCloud’s 2025 Identity Exposure Report reveals that 91% of organisations reported suffering an identity-related incident in the last year, nearly double the proportion seen the year before. Data troves comprising stolen credentials, phishing logs, malware infection records and session cookies have expanded dramatically, but many firms remain overconfident in their ability to defend against evolving identity threats.The volume of distinct identity records recaptured by SpyCloud has jumped by 22%, from 43.7 billion to 53.3 billion. Almost 80% of breaches still

Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange has listed the Boreas Solactive Quantum Computing UCITS ETF under the ticker QUANTM, offering investors exposure to 25 companies pioneering quantum computing technologies. This marks the first thematic ETF of its kind on ADX, and joins 16 other ETFs already trading on the platform.The new fund tracks the Solactive Developed Quantum Computing Index, representing firms active in hardware, software & algorithms, and communication & sensing segments of quantum computing. Global tech giants such as Alphabet, Amazon,