Author: Art Ryan

China announced Sunday that it will accelerate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data in elderly and social care as part of its strategy to harness new technologies for economic growth despite an aging population. The move comes as officials face challenges related to the country’s low birth rate and declining workforce. “We will accelerate the development and application of new technologies and products such as big data and artificial intelligence in the fields of social assistance, elderly care services, and services for the disabled,” civil affairs minister Lu Zhiyuan said during a news conference at China’s annual…

GYEONGJU, North Gyeongsang Province — This year’s APEC summit, hosted by South Korea, will place artificial intelligence and demographic shifts at the forefront of the agenda for discussion — topics that have never before taken the spotlight at the regional economic forum. South Korea’s Ambassador Yoon Seong-mee, chair of the 2025 APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting, on Sunday emphasized the urgency and significance in prioritizing cooperation on AI technologies by the 21 APEC economies and responses to population changes such as low birth rates and aging societies. “Especially, AI and demographic structure are topics that have never been addressed at APEC,…

Anthropic has launched a significant overhaul to its developer platform, introducing team collaboration features and extended reasoning capabilities for its Claude AI assistant that aim to solve major pain points for organizations implementing AI solutions. The upgraded Anthropic Console now allows cross-functional teams to collaborate on AI prompts — the text instructions that guide AI models — and also supports the company’s latest Claude 3.7 Sonnet model with new controls for complex problem-solving. “We built our shareable prompts to help our customers and developers work together effectively on prompt development,” an Anthropic spokesperson told VentureBeat. “What we learned from talking to customers was that…

The ongoing AI-related copyright lawsuit against Meta has received a major boost as a federal judge in the US has decided to let it proceed. The case, Kadrey vs. Meta, involves authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Ta-Nehisi Coates who have accused the tech giant of infringing their intellectual property rights. They claim that Meta used their books to train its Llama AI models and then removed copyright information from them to hide this alleged infringement. Legal proceedings Meta’s defense and the judge’s stance In response to the allegations, Meta has defended its actions by claiming that its training falls under fair…

Cisco has unveiled a new line of data center Smart Switches, offering a streamlined approach to networking and security. The new Smart Switch with Cisco Hypershield integrates security directly into the network, addressing the growing complexity of AI-driven workloads. “As the Philippines pushes for greater adoption of AI, and as AI workloads continue to multiply, building and managing data centers will become much more complex,” said Zaza Soriano-Nicart, managing director, Cisco Philippines. “With the Smart Switches, we are offering a new way to do that and enable businesses to accelerate their adoption of AI and other innovations without compromising security.”…

Hangzhou-based AI startup DeepSeek launched its app on Jan. 20, 2025, offering a low-cost large language model for free. Within two days, it became the most downloaded freeware app on the US iOS App Store, surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The launch coincided with the World Economic Forum in Davos, drawing attention from global investors. Bonnie Chan Yiting, CEO of Hong Kong Stock Exchanges and Clearing, noted that it triggered a reassessment of Chinese tech stocks and boosted investor confidence. This shift in perception had major market implications. Nvidia’s stock plunged 17% on Jan. 27, wiping out US$600 billion in value, as…

AI bots will soon be rolled out on dating apps to flirt with people, craft messages on users’ behalf and write their profiles for them. But depending on artificial intelligence to foster budding relationships risks eroding what little human authenticity is left on dating platforms, experts have warned. Match Group, the technology company with the world’s largest portfolio of dating platforms, including Tinder and Hinge, has announced it is increasing investment in AI, with new products due this month. AI bots will be used to help users choose which photographs will be most popular, write messages to people and provide “effective coaching…

Last year was a monumental year for the AI industry in the U.S. and beyond. There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch. Three companies raised more than one “mega-round” last year, and seven companies raised rounds at $1 billion or larger. How will 2025 compare? It’s still early in the year but the number of U.S. AI companies that have raised more than $100 million is almost in double digits, and there has already been one round larger than $1 billion. Here are all the U.S. AI companies that…

Researchers at The Ohio State University have introduced Finer-CAM, an innovative method that significantly improves the precision and interpretability of image explanations in fine-grained classification tasks. This advanced technique addresses key limitations of existing Class Activation Map (CAM) methods by explicitly highlighting subtle yet critical differences between visually similar categories. Current Challenge with Traditional CAM Conventional CAM methods typically illustrate general regions influencing a neural network’s predictions but frequently fail to distinguish fine details necessary for differentiating closely related classes. This limitation poses significant challenges in fields requiring precise differentiation, such as species identification, automotive model recognition, and aircraft type…

In January, we learned that WhatsApp was testing a new home screen widget on Android to make Meta AI quickly accessible. Now we learn the company is testing another widget to make Meta AI easy to access. This revelation comes from WABetaInfo, who discovered this new widget in beta version 2.25.6.14 of WhatsApp for Android. You can see in the screenshots below that this new widget now has three shortcuts: one to open the chat with Meta AI, another to quickly share a photo with Meta AI, and a third for voice-based interaction with Meta AI. The size of this new widget can…

The BBC has announced plans to create a new department, BBC News Growth, Innovation, and AI, to enhance personalized news content using AI. This initiative is part of a wider restructuring by Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News. The new unit aims to engage younger audiences, particularly those under 25, as news consumption shifts to digital platforms like TikTok. The department will explore AI applications, including story curation based on user habits, to improve news delivery. Turness highlighted challenges like news avoidance, digital transitions, rising competition, and declining broadcast viewership. AI will help the BBC better understand audience needs…

Microsoft Corp. has created in-house artificial intelligence models it believes can go toe-to-toe with industry leaders including partner OpenAI, according to a person familiar with the situation. A family of models Microsoft is developing recently produced test results suggesting that they were competitive with state-of-the art rivals, including products from OpenAI and Anthropic, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter. The Redmond, Washington-based company has tested how the models, called MAI, might perform on a variety of tasks, including powering elements of the company’s Copilot-branded AI assistants. Copilots are designed to handle a broad range of…

Agora, Inc. (NASDAQ: API), a latform for real-time engagement APIs, today announced the launch of its Conversational AI Engine, enabling developers to create interactive voice experiences with any AI model. Agora said the engine ensures ultra-low latency responses and superior voice processing, allowing for the reation of immersive voice AI experiences. Agora’s Conversational AI Engine provides developers with the flexibility to use any AI model, whether custom-built or from leading LLM providers, and any text-to-speech (TTS) voice solution for their AI agent. The Engine is designed to optimize real-time conversation flow. It enables faster, low-latency responses and intelligently pauses for…

The U.S. Department of Justice dropped a proposal Friday to force Alphabet’s Google to sell its investments in artificial intelligence companies, including OpenAI competitor Anthropic, to boost competition in online search. The DOJ and a coalition of 38 state attorneys general still seek a court order requiring Google to sell its Chrome browser and take other measures aimed at addressing what a judge said was Google’s illegal search monopoly, according to court papers filed in Washington. “The American dream is about higher values than just cheap goods and ‘free’ online services. These values include freedom of speech, freedom of association,…

Nagasaki University in southwestern Japan and a local systems development company have unveiled an artificial intelligence program that lets medical students practice interviews with virtual patients on a screen. The development comes as regional universities struggle to secure simulated patients, who require training to accurately reproduce symptoms of real cases, the university said, amid population declines in many of Japan’s local areas. Photo shows a demonstration of the artificial intelligence program aimed at helping medical students practice interviews with virtual patients on a screen in Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, on March 4, 2025. (Kyodo) In a demonstration in early March, an…

Revolutionizing Trading with AI-Powered Strategies In today’s fast-paced trading environment, traders are turning to artificial intelligence to optimize their strategies and enhance profitability. DeckTrade has emerged as a leader in AI-driven trading solutions, providing traders with cutting-edge automation tools that remove human error and improve market efficiency. With its proprietary AI technology, DeckTrade’s smart trading system continuously analyzes market data, executes trades with precision, and adjusts strategies based on real-time conditions. As a result, traders are seeing higher returns, better accuracy, and improved risk management. Many users have shared positive experiences in decktrade reviews, highlighting how AI-powered automation has transformed their trading performance. The AI Advantage:…

Artificial intelligence algorithms are being built into almost all aspects of health care. They’re integrated into breast cancer screenings, clinical note-taking, health insurance management and even phone and computer apps to create virtual nurses and transcribe doctor-patient conversations. Companies say that these tools will make medicine more efficient and reduce the burden on doctors and other health care workers. But some experts question whether the tools work as well as companies claim they do. AI tools such as large language models, or LLMs, which are trained on vast troves of text data to generate humanlike text, are only as good as their training and testing.…

Apple has announced this week that it will be delaying the release of planned features for Siri that would have included AI-improved capabilities to make it a more personalized and sophisticated digital assistant. While they were supposed to launch soonish, Apple has found its AI tech harder to implement than anticipated and the features are now slated to launch sometime “in the coming year.” The Apple company announced the delay this week alongside a statement from an Apple spokesperson Jacqueline Roy, as shared by Daring Fireball: Siri helps our users find what they need and get things done quickly, and in…

Meta’s next major “open” AI model may have a voice focus, per a report in Financial Times. According to the piece, Meta is planning to introduce improved voice features with Llama 4, the next flagship in its Llama model family, which is expected to arrive in “weeks.” Reportedly, Meta has been particularly focused on allowing users to interrupt the model mid-speech, similar to OpenAI’s Voice Mode for ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini Live experience. In comments this week at a Morgan Stanley conference, Meta chief product officer Chris Cox said that Llama 4 will be an “omni” model, capable of natively interpreting and outputting speech as well as text and…

SoftBank advances AI-RAN with groundbreaking performance improvements, cost-saving solutions, and sustainability-driven partnerships, redefining next-gen mobile networks at MWC 2025. SoftBank Corp. (“SoftBank”) led a series of major announcements this week that will drive the widespread global adoption of AI-RAN infrastructure. Alongside significant enhancements to SoftBank’s proprietary converged AI-RAN solution, “AITRAS,” SoftBank and its partners announced a range of technological developments at MWC Barcelona 2025. SoftBank has pioneered AI-RAN since the concept was first announced at its Annual General Meeting of Shareholders in June 2023 – followed in 2024 by the formation of the AI-RAN Alliance at MWC Barcelona 2024 and the subsequent…