Tech-News
Twitter restores blue tick to high-profile accounts with over 1 million followers
Twitter reinstated blue tick badges for some accounts with over one million followers without charging a subscription fee.
Beyoncé, Harry Kane, Richard Osman, and Victoria Beckham are among those whose blue ticks were restored, reports BBC.
The BBC News Twitter account got back its gold badge but has not paid for it.
Before Elon Musk acquired the platform, the blue tick was a free symbol of verification provided by Twitter, said the report.
It was created as an authentication method to prevent the spread of false accounts and disinformation.
It is now a sign that an account has subscribed to Twitter Blue, a premium service, and there is a verification procedure associated with making a payment. The price varies depending on where the membership is bought, but it is usually approximately $8 per month, said the report.
Those who had a blue tick from the first verification procedure but did not pay the membership price began losing their ticks on April 20, it added.
James O'Brien, a broadcaster with 1.1 million followers, is one of many who has regained their blue tick after losing it. He admitted to not having paid for his account.
He also mentioned that some accounts with fewer than 1 million followers appeared to have had their blue ticks restored, which he described as "anointed entirely at Elon Musk's discretion."
Musk claimed that he paid for the memberships on behalf of novelist Stephen King, actor William Shatner, and basketball star LeBron James who had criticized the scheme.
Despite having over 21 million followers, certain celebrities, such as actor Ryan Reynolds, still do not have a blue tick.
It was claimed that the legacy blue ticks had to be removed manually, so this might potentially be a manual procedure that will continue in the following days.
Twitter Blue had a difficult launch. It was first delayed due to an increase of fake accounts posing to be official organizations, and in recent weeks, both subscribers and previously validated accounts have seemed identical.
Subscribers' tweets are more visible, individual messages can be longer, and they see fewer advertisements.
Elon Musk has previously stated that when he took over, the company's finances were in disarray and that Twitter was losing $4 million per day.
Twitter has not said how many users have subscribed so far, but app maker Sensor Tower projected to TechCrunch that the network will have roughly 386,000 subscribers in March 2023. This does not include subscriptions paid through Twitter's website rather than its app, but it is still a modest portion of the company's over 300 million user base.
SpaceX takes second shot at launching biggest rocket
SpaceX prepared to launch the biggest and most powerful rocket Thursday, working nonstop after the first shot at a test flight fizzled earlier in the week.
The nearly 400-foot (120-meter) Starship was poised to blast off from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. SpaceX’s Elon Musk gave 50-50 odds of the spacecraft reaching orbit on its debut.
None of the rocket will be recovered. Instead, if all goes well, the first-stage booster, dubbed Super Heavy, would drop into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft on top would continue eastward, passing over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans before ditching near Hawaii. The whole flight, if successful, would last just 1 1/2 hours.
The company plans to use Starship to send people and cargo to the moon and, eventually, Mars. NASA has reserved a Starship for its next moonwalking team, and rich tourists are already booking lunar flybys.
A stuck booster valve scrapped Monday’s try. Hundreds of space fans returned to the launch site at Boca Chica Beach on the eve of the second launch attempt, snapping more selfies.
“I've been waiting for this, really, for years,” said Bob Drwal, a retired engineer who drove down from Chicago with wife Donna.
'TruthGPT': Elon Musk plans to create alternative to ChatGPT
Billionaire Twitter owner Elon Musk is again sounding warning bells on the dangers of artificial intelligence to humanity — and claiming that a popular chatbot has a liberal bias that he plans to counter with his own AI creation.
Musk told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a segment aired Monday night that he plans to create an alternative to the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT that he is calling “TruthGPT,” which will be a "maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.”
The idea, Musk said, is that an AI that wants to understand humanity is less likely to destroy it.
Musk also said he's worried that ChatGPT “is being trained to be politically correct.”
In the first of a two-part interview with Carlson, Musk also advocated for the regulation of artificial intelligence, saying he's a “big fan.” He called AI “more dangerous” than cars or rockets and said it has the potential to destroy humanity.
Read: 'Out of control' AI race: Elon Musk, top tech personalities call for a pause
Separately, Musk has incorporated a new business called X.AI Corp,, according to a Nevada business filing. The website of the Nevada secretary of state’s office says the business was formed on March 9 and lists Musk as its director and his longtime adviser, Jared Birchall, as secretary.
Musk has for many years expressed strong opinions about artificial intelligence and has dismissed other tech leaders, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, for having what he has described as a “limited” understanding of the field.
Musk was an early investor in OpenAI — the startup behind ChatGPT — and co-chaired its board upon its 2015 founding as a nonprofit AI research lab. But Musk only lasted there for a few years, resigning from the board in early 2018 in a move that the San Francisco startup tied to Tesla’s work on building automated driving systems. “As Tesla continues to become more focused on AI, this will eliminate a potential future conflict for Elon,” OpenAI said in a February 2018 blog post.
“I came up with the name and the concept,” Musk told Carlson, lamenting that OpenAI is now closely allied with Microsoft and is no longer a nonprofit.
Musk elaborated on his departure in 2019, saying it was also related to his need to focus on engineering problems at Tesla and some differences of opinion with OpenAI’s leaders. It was “just better to part ways on good terms," he said.
“Tesla was competing for some of same people as OpenAI & I didn’t agree with some of what OpenAI team wanted to do,” Musk tweeted, without specifying.
But there have been questions surrounding the quality of Tesla's AI systems. U.S. safety regulators last month announced an investigation into a fatal crash involving a Tesla suspected of using an automated driving system when it ran into a parked firetruck in California.
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The firetruck probe is part of a larger investigation by the agency into multiple instances of Teslas using the automaker’s Autopilot system crashing into parked emergency vehicles that are tending to other crashes. NHTSA has become more aggressive in pursuing safety problems with Teslas in the past year, announcing multiple recalls and investigations.
In the year after Musk resigned from the board, OpenAI was still far away from working on ChatGPT but publicly unveiled the first generation of its GPT system, on which ChatGPT is founded, and began a major shift to incorporate itself as a for-profit business.
By 2020, Musk was tweeting that “OpenAI should be more open” while noting that he had “no control & only very limited insight” into it.
At times, he has been complementary. In the days after the Nov. 30 release of ChatGPT, Musk tweeted to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that it is “scary good” and complained that news media wasn’t widely covering it because “ChatGPT is not a far left cause.”
Since then, however, Musk has repeatedly highlighted examples that he says show left-wing bias or censorship. Like other chatbots, ChatGPT has filters that try to prevent it from spewing out toxic or offensive answers.
Apple CEO celebrates India as first store in country set to open on April 18
As it celebrates more than 25 years in India, iPhone manufacturer Apple announced today that its first two stores in the country will open this week, marking the company's ambitious growth strategy.
Apple will open two locations in Mumbai and Delhi, NDTV reported.
"This week, as Apple celebrates more than 25 years in India, the company is marking a major expansion with the opening of its first Apple Store locations in the country, along with new environmental initiatives and a key milestone in the rapidly growing community of Indian developers," Apple said in a statement.
Apple will open its first store in Mumbai on April 18, followed by the opening of its second official store in Delhi on April 20, said the report.
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According to Apple, these stores have been intended to have a local look and feel.
"India has such a beautiful culture and an incredible energy, and we are excited to build on our long-standing history -- supporting our customers, investing in local communities, and working together to build a better future with innovations that serve humanity," Apple CEO Tim Cook said.
Apple shipments from India are expected to exceed USD 5 billion in the fiscal year 2022-23, accounting for over half of the total "Made in India" phone exports, the report also said.
In 2017, the company started manufacturing iPhones in India through contract manufacturers.
Read More: Apple Car: The Leaks and Rumors
"Apple's work with Indian suppliers of all sizes supports hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country," the statement said.
The company also stated that it works one-on-one with developers to help them take their apps from "good to great" at the iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in Bengaluru.
"India's vibrant community of app developers now supports more than 1 million jobs. A testament to the tremendous growth of developers in India, App Store payouts to developers in the country have more than tripled since 2018," the statement added.
Read More: Apple to use Sony’s state-of-the-art Sensor technology in iPhone 15 Series
24 students receive ‘Huawei BUET ICT Academy’ certification
Twenty-four students have been awarded certifications from “Huawei BUET ICT Academy” after the first batch successfully completed its four months training this week.
BUET Vice Chancellor Satya Prasad Majumder, Pro VC Prof Abdul Jabbar Khan and director of Huawei South Asia Enterprise Partner Development and Management Department Zhangcheng handed over the certification to the students, said a press release today.
Started in January this year, the training for the first batch was focused on routing and switching (IP Networks) and 5G (Cellular and Mobile Networks).
Huawei Authorized Information and Network Academy (HAINA) coordinated the course and certification, said the release.
Of the 24 students, 14 have completed training in routing and switching, and 10 have finished training on 5G. In addition, the participants got the opportunity to communicate with more than 3,000 global instructors. Further, the academy aims to cover 83 certification programmess on 19 different subjects in the next batches.
“Academic knowledge itself is not enough for the students anymore. Thus, collaborating with Huawei will expose the students to practical scenarios and knowledge. Moreover, gaining international certificates benefits the students by opening a wide range of job opportunities and preparing them for future employment,” said BUET VC.
“Huawei has been always devoted in developing a better ICT talent ecosystem in Bangladesh and equip them with relevant ICT skills. We are pleased to see the interest of youth showed for this academy. Congratulations to all the participants of the first batch who finished the training,” said Zhangcheng.
It is mentionable that Huawei South Asia has been setting up ICT Academy in collaboration with different universities as part of their commitment to developing an ICT ecosystem. Huawei has recently established its 6th ICT Academy at CUET in Bangladesh to enhance ICT-related skills among young learners.
Teletalk signs deal with Huawei to strengthen nationwide network
Teletalk Bangladesh Limited has signed an agreement with Huawei to upgrade Teletalk’s network to ensure better coverage in rural areas and 5G readiness.
The signing ceremony was held at the city's Lakeshore Hotel Gulshan on Thursday, (April 13, 2023).
A.K.M. Habibur Rahman, managing director of Teletalk Bangladesh Limited, Md. Khayrul Hasan, project director, Expansion of teletalk's Network up to Rural Areas and Network Readiness for
5G Services Project, Pan Junfeng (Peter), president of Huawei South Asia Representative Office and CEO of Huawei Bangladesh; Guo Yu, Account Director, Huawei, were at the signing event along with other officials from both companies.
The project will ensure 4G coverage for the marginal people of Bangladesh. Huawei will facilitate Teletalk with new 4G sites, core network, IP network, charging and billing system modernization solutions.
Pan Junfeng said “Digital connectivity is the key to transforming the country, and we continue to help the nation develop its ICT & Telecommunication sector. With that inspiration, we have been a responsible member of this ecosystem in Bangladesh with our latest and advanced technology. Previously, we partnered with Teletalk to launch 5G for the first time in Bangladesh. It was a great achievement. We are extremely pleased to collaborate with Teletalk Bangladesh Limited further. We hope this agreement will help the nation to increase the pace of achieving the vision of Smart Bangladesh.”
“We want to diversify our network so that everyone nationwide can access high-speed connectivity; thus, we have taken on the major network upgradation project. We want to offer superior service to our subscribers at affordable costs. Huawei has fantastic technologies, solutions, and team to support Teletalk in meeting its ambitions, said Habibur Rahman. "Thus, we feel pleased to partner with Huawei and upgrade our network nationwide. We aim to finish the project by mid-2024, he added”
'I shouldn't tweet after 3am': Musk says owning Twitter has been 'quite painful'
Elon Musk has described running Twitter as "quite painful" and "a rollercoaster" in a live interview with the BBC.
The multibillionaire also said if the right buyer came along, he would sell the company.
Twitter was purchased by Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, last October for $44 billion.
The interview took place at the company's headquarters in San Francisco and addressed his work habits, misinformation, and the huge layoffs.
Musk acknowledged that the only reason he followed through with the Twitter takeover was because a judge was about to order him to buy the company.
During the conversation with BBC, Musk tried defending his running of the company.
When asked if he regretted purchasing Twitter, the second-richest man in the world said the "pain level has been extremely high, this hasn't been some kind of party".
Talking about his time at Twitter, Musk said: "It's not been boring. It's been quite a rollercoaster."
It has been "really quite a stressful situation over the last several months," he added, but he admitted that buying the company was the right decision.
Around the beginning of 2022, Musk increased his stake in Twitter and offered to buy the company. However, after he attempted to back out of the agreement, Twitter sued him.
Musk told the BBC that things are "reasonably well" and that "the site works" and that usage is growing.
Due to his workload, he admitted, "I sometimes sleep in the office", and he also has a sofa area in a library "that nobody goes to."
He also addressed his controversial tweets saying, "Have I shot myself in the foot with tweets multiple times? Yes."
"I think I should not tweet after 3am," he added.
Twitter is now "roughly breaking even" Musk said while discussing its finances, as majority of the advertisers have returned.
It had not been easy cutting the workforce from just under 8,000 at the time he bought the firm to about 1,500, Musk added.
He acknowledged that he did not personally fire everyone, saying, "It's not possible to talk with that many people face to face."The exit of many Twitter engineers following Musk’s purchase of the company has raised questions about the platform's stability.
He admitted certain issues, such as site outages, but claimed that they had only lasted a brief period of time and that everything was presently great.
China’s Alibaba to roll out ChatGPT rival Tongyi Qianwen
Alibaba, a Chinese technology giant, has announced plans to roll out its own artificial intelligence (AI) ChatGPT-style product called Tongyi Qianwen.
In recent months, technology companies around the world have unveiled their own so-called generative AI chatbots.
Earlier this year, Alibaba revealed it was working on a rival to ChatGPT, reports BBC.
Tongyi Qianwen roughly translates as "seeking an answer by asking a thousand questions", although Alibaba has not given an English version of the name.
Its cloud computing unit says it will integrate the chatbot across Alibaba's businesses in the "near future" but did not give details on its timeline.
"We are at a technological watershed moment driven by generative AI and cloud computing," Alibaba's chairman and chief executive Daniel Zhang said as Tongyi Qianwen was launched.
The company said Tongyi Qianwen, which is capable of working in English as well as Chinese, will initially be added to DingTalk, Alibaba's workplace messaging app.
It will perform a number of tasks including turning conversations in meetings into written notes, writing emails and drafting business proposals, the company said.
Alibaba said it will also be integrated into Tmall Genie, which is similar to Amazon's Alexa voice assistant smart speaker.
Interest in generative AI has surged since the release of ChatGPT by Microsoft-backed OpenAI in November.
ChatGPT can answer questions using natural, human-like language and it can also mimic other writing styles, using the internet as it was in 2021 as its database.
Microsoft has spent billions of dollars on the technology, which was added to its search engine Bing in February.
The US software giant also said it will embed a version of ChatGPT in its Office apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
Alphabet's Google and Chinese technology group Baidu have also announced their own AI models and released similar chatbots.
Huawei announces winner of Facebook Quiz campaign
Huawei has recently announced the winner of Digital Bangladesh Mela Quiz campaign that was arranged on Huawei Bangladesh Facebook page.
The participant who has answered all 10 questions correctly and met other requirements have been selected as the winners as per the criteria announced for this quiz.
The quiz campaign was organized in January of this year with an announcement that whoever answered all the questions correctly following the guidelines would be selected as the winner.
The competition got more than 11 thousand responses against 10 quizzes.
Md. Ali Hossain, from Nabiganj upazila of Habiganj, came out victorious as the sole winner of this competition after fulfilling all requirements.
The winner has been awarded a GT3 Classic Smart Watch.
Tanvir Ahmed, Head of Media, Huawei South Asia, said, “Technology will play a vital role in building our smart Bangladesh.
"We always want to share our insights and knowledge for a better ICT ecosystem. With that inspiration, we share diversified information and resources for our audiences on all our social media platforms," he added.
BWIGF: Ensuring women have a say in internet governance
The Bangladesh Internet Governance Forum (BIGF) and its special body the Bangladesh Women IGF (BWIGF) Saturday organised a day-long training workshop on governance in the capital.
The Bangladesh Women IGF works to ensure a gender perspective is included in the key debates around internet governance issues, such as content regulation, privacy, access, and freedom of expression.
It also aims to increase women's participation at the BIGF and IGF and related fora, support capacity building of gender advocates, and promote more effective linkages between local, regional and global initiatives on gender and information society.
Today's workshop helped the participants explore internet governance in different ways through several new ideas and discussions.
At the event, Afroza Haq Rina MP, an adviser to the Bangladesh Women IGF, called for ensuring affordable internet for all women to improve their lives and livelihoods.
Bangladesh Women IGF Secretary General Farha Mahmud Trina, former secretary Md Nasir Uddin Ahmed, AHM Bazlur Rahman, CEO of Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication, Khaza Md Anas Khan, country manager of GIGABYTE Technology, BIGF Secretary General Mohammad Abdul Haq Anu, Shahnaz Sharmeen, chief reporter of Nagorik TV, and Shahnaz Munni, chief news editor of News 24 TV, were present.