Category: Technology

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order laying out a proposed deal for a US version of TikTok that would see Chinese ownership reduced to 20% and put control in the hands of the president’s allies. At a signing ceremony at the White House, Trump said the US version of the app would be run by “highly sophisticated” investors including Larry Ellison, the founder of cloud giant Oracle, tech investor Michael Dell and media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Investment firm Silver Lake Management and Silicon Valley powerhouse Andreessen…

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EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday threw her support behind growing calls to ban social media use for children, promising to weigh action at the European level in coming months. “Many member states believe the time has come for a ‘digital majority age’ for access to social media,” the European Commission head told an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. “I must tell you as a mother of seven children, and grandmother of five, I share their view,” she told the gathering in New York.…

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WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order on Thursday that declares a deal being negotiated by the White House to sell TikTok’s US operations will meet requirements set out in a 2024 law, a White House source with knowledge of the matter said. Earlier this week, the White House said Trump will declare that a deal to divest TikTok’s US operations from its Chinese owner ByteDance will meet requirements set out in a law passed by Congress that bans the short video app unless its Chinese…

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Meta is set to roll out its “Teen Accounts” feature for Facebook and Messenger in Pakistan to provide a safer and more age-appropriate experience for teenagers. The company said that it will start placing teens who are new to the app, and teens who are already using Facebook and Messenger, into Teen Accounts as early as this week in Pakistan. Hundreds of millions of teenagers are already using Teen Accounts across its platforms, including Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, Meta said. The feature is designed to strengthen online safety by automatically…

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Google has launched its AI Plus plan in Pakistan, offering users broader access to its advanced AI tools at what the company describes as an affordable price. The new plan is designed to boost productivity and creativity by offering higher limits for image generation and editing in the Gemini app, greater access to Gemini 2.5 Pro — Google’s most powerful AI model — and integration of Gemini into Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. Users will also get access to Google’s Veo 3 Fast video generation model in Gemini, Whisk and Flow,…

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Nasa officials on Tuesday said the agency’s first crewed flight in its Artemis programme—a trip around the moon and back—is on track for launch in April and could potentially be moved up to February. The space agency’s Artemis programme is the flagship US effort to return humans to the moon, a multibillion dollar series of missions that rivals a similar effort by China, which is aiming for a 2030 astronaut moon landing. Artemis 2, a 10-day flight in which a crew of four astronauts will fly around the moon and…

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KARACHI: Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja on Tuesday said that Pakistan is set to roll out 5G services in the coming months, starting with seven major cities across the country. The promise of 5G internet, however, comes after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in its annual report for 2024 stated that even with rising broadband penetration, Pakistan will have a difficult transition to 5G, The News reported last year in December. There are worries over the financial difficulties associated with Pakistan’s transition to 5G wireless…

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KARACHI: Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja on Tuesday said that Pakistan is set to roll out 5G services in the coming months, starting with seven major cities across the country. The promise of 5G internet, however, comes after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in its annual report for 2024 stated that even with rising broadband penetration, Pakistan will have a difficult transition to 5G, The News reported last year in December. There are worries over the financial difficulties associated with Pakistan’s transition to 5G wireless…

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Sky watchers are in for a treat later this month as a partial solar eclipse is set to unfold overnight on 21-22 September, according to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa). The event will not be visible in the United States, but observers in Australia, Antarctica, and across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans will be able to witness it. Pakistan, however, will miss out. The Climate Data Processing Centre of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) said the eclipse will begin at 10:30pm (PST) on 21 September, peak at…

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Swedish prosecutors announced on Tuesday that a cyberattack on an IT systems provider exposed the personal details of 1.5 million people online. Swedish media said town and city councils and private companies had been affected. The number of people targeted represents nearly 15% of Sweden’s population of 10.6 million. The attack against systems provider Miljodata occurred during the weekend of August 23-24, the prosecution authority said in a statement. “The data stolen in connection with the attack on the system supplier has now been leaked. “This concerns data belonging to…

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