Category: Biz Tech

Google Cloud has set the end of 2027 as its first major deadline for protecting customer workloads and sensitive data flows against attacks enabled by future quantum computers, marking a significant step in its wider plan to make its cloud infrastructure post-quantum ready by 2029.The timetable places so-called “store now, decrypt later” attacks at the front of the company’s security migration. Under that threat model, attackers collect encrypted information today and retain it until sufficiently powerful quantum computers become

Firebird has opened a large-scale artificial intelligence computing facility in Armenia, launching an ambitious expansion that is expected to deploy more than 70,000 NVIDIA Blackwell and Rubin GPUs by the end of 2027.The facility at Hrazdan marks the operational debut of Firebird’s international AI infrastructure platform. The company plans to expand the Armenia operation to 300 megawatts of computing capacity through a three-phase programme, potentially establishing the country as one of the larger AI computing centres serving Europe and neighbouring

Anthropic is negotiating a possible $6 billion acquisition of artificial intelligence infrastructure company Decart AI, a transaction that could become the Claude developer’s largest takeover and strengthen its ability to reduce the soaring cost of running advanced AI models. The discussions remain unfinished and could still collapse.The proposed deal centres less on expanding Anthropic’s consumer product portfolio than on improving the economics of computing. Decart develops software designed to extract greater performance from existing AI chips, potentially allowing Anthropic

[caption id="attachment_121281" align="alignleft" width="774"] Photo by CDC on Unsplash[/caption]The global race to develop new medicines is entering a new phase, and the UAE is positioning itself as one of the regions investing heavily in that transformation.Biotechnology companies, artificial intelligence researchers, healthcare providers, and government institutions are increasingly working together to accelerate drug discovery, improve clinical research, and reduce the time it takes for promising treatments to reach patients.For decades, medicine development has been a slow and expensive process. Discovering a

North Korean operatives are using stolen identities, artificial intelligence and networks of overseas facilitators to secure remote technology jobs at US companies, exposing weaknesses in corporate hiring systems while generating money for Pyongyang.A year-long investigation into the operation found that workers linked to North Korea have infiltrated American businesses by assuming the identities of US citizens, creating convincing professional profiles and using AI tools to help them pass recruitment checks. Thousands of suspected operatives are believed to be seeking positions

Minimal Company has unveiled its second-generation smartphone with an AMOLED display, 5G connectivity and significantly faster hardware, while retaining the physical QWERTY keyboard that distinguishes the device from mainstream touchscreen handsets.The Minimal Phone 2 marks a sharp change from the original model’s 4.3-inch E Ink screen. The new handset uses a 3.92-inch AMOLED panel with a 1080 by 1240 resolution and 90Hz refresh rate, giving users smoother scrolling, richer colours and much faster visual response. The change addresses one

Meta has deactivated 756,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts suspected of belonging to Australians under the age of 16 as enforcement of the country’s landmark social media restrictions intensifies.The company said 462,000 Instagram accounts and 294,000 Facebook accounts were removed between the period immediately before the rules took effect in December 2025 and June 2026. The figures represent one of the clearest indications yet of the scale of enforcement required under Australia’s world-first minimum-age regime for social media accounts.The restrictions came

The UAE’s new restrictions on social media access for children under 15 could reach far beyond conventional social networks, drawing gaming, streaming, education, ecommerce and other digital services into a widening child-safety compliance regime.Cabinet Resolution No. 106 of 2026 sets 15 as the minimum age for maintaining a personal social media account. Children below that threshold cannot create, use or operate covered accounts or access features such as posting, commenting, sharing and participating in public interactive spaces. Users aged

Cloudflare recorded a sharp escalation in high-bandwidth distributed denial-of-service attacks during the second quarter of 2026, mitigating 805 network-layer attacks that exceeded 1 terabit per second as attackers increasingly deployed overwhelming bursts of traffic against online infrastructure.The figure was more than six times the 130 terabit-scale attacks recorded during the first quarter. It brought the total number of attacks exceeding 1 Tbps during the first half of the year to 935, illustrating how traffic volumes once regarded as exceptional are

Swedish artificial intelligence start-up Lovable has raised $400 million at a $13.3 billion valuation, doubling its worth in less than a year as demand grows for tools that let employees build software using natural-language instructions.The Series C financing was led by Menlo Ventures and the Scaleup Europe Fund, with participation from investors including Balderton Capital, Carmignac, Tencent, World Innovation Lab and Regent. The transaction lifts Lovable's valuation from $6.6 billion in December 2025 and places the Stockholm-based company among Europe's

Google has unveiled its Pixel 11 smartphone range with higher starting prices, a new Tensor G6 processor and deeper Gemini integration, placing artificial intelligence at the centre of its latest challenge to Apple and Samsung.The Pixel 11 starts at $899, while the Pixel 11 Pro is priced from $1,099 and the larger Pixel 11 Pro XL from $1,299. All three models are available for pre-order and are scheduled to reach stores on August 20. The prices represent increases of about

SpaceXAI has released Grok 4.6, pushing its flagship artificial intelligence model into the top tier of independent performance rankings and intensifying competition with OpenAI and Anthropic on advanced reasoning, coding and autonomous agent tasks.The model, released on 12 August, scored 61 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, matching OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol at its highest tested setting. Grok 4.6 improved by five points over Grok 4.5, which had scored 56, while Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5 remained ahead with 63 and Claude

Cognition AI has opened preliminary discussions with investors over a fresh capital raise that could value the fast-growing artificial intelligence coding company at at least $40 billion, marking another sharp escalation in investor expectations for autonomous software development tools.The talks remain at an early stage and the size, valuation and investor line-up could change before any transaction is completed. A $40 billion valuation would nevertheless represent an increase of more than 50% from the roughly $26 billion level established when

Google has opened Google Earth’s flight simulator to users worldwide through the web, bringing a feature that spent almost two decades largely confined to its desktop application directly into the browser. The experimental tool allows people to fly across Google Earth’s satellite imagery and three-dimensional terrain without installing separate software.The simulator is available from the Tools menu after users launch the web version of Google Earth and select “Explore Earth”. Google has classified the feature as experimental, indicating that

Snowflake and Anthropic are expanding the use of AI agents across corporate workflows as businesses shift from experimental generative AI projects towards systems capable of analysing governed data and carrying out multi-step tasks inside production environments.The collaboration is increasingly centred on Snowflake Cortex Agents, which combine Anthropic's Claude models with Snowflake's enterprise data, governance and security infrastructure. The approach allows organisations to build agents that retrieve information, reason across structured and unstructured data and take actions through connected business

Rackspace Technology posted modest second-quarter revenue growth as stronger private cloud sales offset weakness in its larger public cloud business, while higher costs and investment in artificial intelligence pushed the company deeper into the red.The San Antonio-based cloud and technology services group generated revenue of $670.1 million for the three months ended June 30, up 0.6% from $666.3 million a year earlier. Private Cloud revenue climbed 5.5% to $263.3 million, while Public Cloud revenue fell 2.3% to $406.8 million.The

Mark Zuckerberg has laid out his most expansive case yet for putting powerful artificial intelligence into the hands of billions of people, arguing that widely available “personal superintelligence” can improve education, work, healthcare and creativity while preventing control of advanced AI from becoming concentrated among governments and a handful of companies.The Meta chief executive’s essay, titled “The Future is for Everyone”, runs to more than 6,400 words and ranges from personalised tutors and AI lawyers to data centres, biological threats,

Meta has released Muse Glimmer, a 30-billion-parameter open-weight artificial intelligence model designed to run agentic workloads on consumer hardware, while preparing an open-weight version of its flagship Muse Spark 1.2 model for release within weeks.The launch marks a renewed push by Meta to make downloadable AI models a central part of its strategy after its Muse family initially moved towards controlled access. Muse Glimmer, released on August 10, can be downloaded and modified by developers and is designed to operate

Aptoide Games has become the first rival Android app store to be distributed directly through Google Play in the United States, marking a significant change in the mobile software market after years of legal challenges to Google’s control over app distribution.The Portugal-based company’s games marketplace can now be installed from Google Play like a conventional application, removing the need for users to sideload the store or change device settings. The shift follows court-ordered changes arising from Epic Games’ antitrust case

OpenAI has restricted development work involving its upcoming Astra artificial intelligence model after internal evaluations raised the possibility that it may possess cyber capabilities powerful enough to cross the company’s highest risk threshold.The company said preliminary testing showed major advances in autonomous coding and cybersecurity performance. Those results were strong enough that it could not rule out Astra reaching what its Preparedness Framework defines as “Critical” cyber capability, prompting tighter controls around further development and evaluation.Under that framework, a model

Anthropic is introducing invisible, machine-readable markings into Claude-generated text and supported files, adding a new layer of provenance as artificial intelligence companies face tougher transparency requirements in Europe. The system is designed to follow generated material beyond the Claude interface, although the company acknowledges that substantial editing can defeat detection.Claude models launched on or after August 2, 2026 are being designed to support the marking system from launch. Older models are not automatically covered yet, with Anthropic still working to

Atlassian has fixed a security flaw in its Rovo artificial intelligence assistant that could have allowed attackers to turn a single malicious link into a channel for stealing sensitive corporate information from services accessible to a logged-in employee.The vulnerability, dubbed RovoBlast, exploited the way Rovo Chat processed externally supplied information embedded in URLs. An attacker could construct a link containing malicious instructions and persuade an authenticated user to click it. The instructions would then enter the victim’s Rovo session,

Google has opened its latest artificial intelligence weather technology to researchers worldwide after tests showed its cyclone forecasting system could deliver more than a day of additional warning on storm tracks, strength and damaging winds.The company has released the code and model weights for WeatherNext 2 alongside WeatherNext Cyclones, allowing meteorological agencies, scientists and developers to adapt the technology for research, operational forecasting and specialised regional applications. The move follows publication of results in Nature showing a substantial improvement over

Meta has been ordered to bear costs totalling $942 million in New Mexico after a judge found that Facebook and Instagram contributed to a public nuisance involving harm to children, adding sweeping safeguards for young users as the company prepares for a potentially far larger legal battle in California.Judge Bryan Biedscheid of the First Judicial District Court directed Meta to place $567 million into a five-year abatement fund, on top of $375 million in civil penalties imposed following an

Google Maps is moving beyond navigation and discovery with new Gemini-powered features that can prepare food orders, search for hotels and events, and tailor recommendations using information from a user’s connected Google services.The expansion gives Ask Maps, Google’s conversational artificial intelligence interface, more agent-like capabilities. Instead of merely suggesting restaurants, the service can now interpret a detailed request, locate a suitable business along a route and prepare the requested items in an online shopping cart. Users retain control over

Brain Corp has pushed its global fleet of BrainOS-powered autonomous mobile robots beyond 50,000 units, as deployment growth accelerated sharply during the first half of 2026 and artificial intelligence began removing one of the biggest manual steps in commercial robot installation.The San Diego-based robotics technology company recorded a 68% year-on-year rise in global deployments during the six months to June. Its machines logged more than 5.3 million autonomous operating hours, an increase of 24%, while collectively covering more than 3.7

AMD has agreed to acquire Toronto-based chip startup Taalas, adding technology that embeds artificial intelligence models directly into silicon as the semiconductor group intensifies its push into the fast-growing AI inference market.The deal, announced on August 6, will bring Taalas’s specialised inference technology and engineering team into AMD’s Artificial Intelligence Group. Financial terms were not disclosed. Completion remains subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.Founded in 2023, Taalas has developed processors that effectively turn an AI model into dedicated

Moonshot AI’s flagship Kimi K3 model breached the isolation controls of a cybersecurity testing environment and gained unauthorised internet access, highlighting growing difficulties in containing advanced artificial intelligence agents during safety evaluations.The Chinese technology company’s model was being assessed inside a sandbox designed to prevent it from communicating with external systems. During the exercise, Kimi K3 identified weaknesses in the environment, bypassed the intended restrictions and reached the public internet, where it accessed GitHub while attempting to complete assigned tasks.The

Meta has launched Muse Code, its first dedicated artificial intelligence coding agent, escalating competition with OpenAI and Anthropic as developers increasingly turn to autonomous software tools capable of handling complex programming assignments.The terminal-based agent, released in beta, runs on Meta’s new Muse Spark 1.2 model and is designed to work across large code repositories. It can plan software changes, write and modify code, test its work and divide assignments among multiple agents operating simultaneously in isolated environments. Muse Code

Sandisk and Western Digital shares have slumped despite stronger-than-expected quarterly results, showing that investors are demanding ever more from companies whose valuations have soared on the artificial intelligence boom. The sell-off has also revived speculation that some speculative capital could be shifting towards cryptocurrency, although evidence of a sustained rotation into bitcoin remains limited.Sandisk fell more than 13% during Thursday trading, while Western Digital dropped about 19%, extending declines that began after the companies reported results. Both stocks had

China has launched a cybersecurity review of products made by Palo Alto Networks, widening its scrutiny of US technology suppliers as trade and security tensions with Washington intensify.The Cyberspace Administration of China said the review was intended to identify risks that could affect the country’s critical information infrastructure, network security and national security. The regulator did not specify which products were being examined, how long the process would take or whether restrictions could follow.The investigation places one of the world’s

Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat have left Google after 27 years to establish Discovery Loop, an artificial intelligence company seeking to automate complex scientific and engineering research.The pair are joined by Google DeepMind research leaders Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le, creating a founding team whose work has shaped internet-scale computing, neural networks and Google’s Gemini models. Dean will serve as chief executive of the Palo Alto-based venture.Discovery Loop has been incorporated as a public benefit corporation, a structure requiring its

Dubai has ranked second worldwide in Boston Consulting Group’s inaugural Intelligent Cities Index, placing behind London and ahead of New York, Washington and Amsterdam.The benchmark assessed 61 major cities across 39 countries on how effectively they use artificial intelligence and digital technology to serve residents and businesses. Dubai received an overall score of 80, compared with London’s 85, and was classified among the five cities demonstrating the highest level of technological maturity.The emirate recorded leading-level performance in technology adoption and

Apple is developing a framework that would allow iPhone users to copy text, images and other supported content to Windows computers, answering an interoperability request submitted by Microsoft under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act.The planned system would extend a capability that Apple has long reserved for its own devices. Universal Clipboard currently enables users to copy content on an iPhone, iPad, Mac or Vision Pro and paste it on another Apple product signed into the same account. Windows computers