Author: i2wtc

The grip Meta Platforms has on digital advertising is only getting stronger. Meta is making a change to its recommendation engine. Starting Dec. 16, conversations users are having with the company’s generative artificial intelligence tools — such as chatbots within Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, as well as the standalone Meta AI app and website — will be used to make ads and content more personal. While users cannot opt out, Meta said the “update won’t apply” to those who do not interact with AI on its platforms. The company also said AI conversations involving health, politics, and religion will…

The High Court in London has ruled in favour of former Pakistani military officer Brigadier (retd) Rashid Naseer in a high-profile defamation case against YouTuber and former army officer Major (retd) Adil Farooq Raja, declaring Raja’s allegations “false, baseless, and malicious”. Justice Richard Spearman of the High Court’s King’s Bench Division ordered Adil Raja to pay £50,000 in damages and an additional £300,000 in court and legal costs, besides directing him to immediately stop publishing false statements and issue a written apology. The detailed judgment states that Raja had made “serious and deliberately false” accusations against Brigadier Naseer on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, without…

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesOpenAI’s short-form artificial intelligence video app Sora hit 1 million downloads less than five days after its launch in late September, according to an executive.Bill Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI, shared the milestone in a post on X late Wednesday. He said Sora reached 1 million downloads even faster than ChatGPT, the company’s popular AI chatbot that supports 800 million weekly active users.Sora allows users to generate short videos for free by typing in a prompt. The app is only available on iOS devices and is invite-based, which means people need a code…

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has acquitted a 74-year-old Christian man in a blasphemy case after 23 years of imprisonment, most of which he spent confined to a death cell due to his mental disorder. “The appellant is more than seventy-four years old and has spent around twenty-three years in prison, most of which was in the death cell. The opinion of the Medical Board raises doubt regarding the culpability of the appellant and its benefit cannot be withheld in the facts and circumstances of this case. The benefit of doubt is, therefore, extended in favor of the appellant and consequently…

Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt spoke at the Sifted Summit on Wednesday 8, October.Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesGoogle’s former CEO Eric Schmidt has issued a stark reminder about the dangers of AI and how susceptible it is to being hacked.Schmidt, who served as Google’s chief executive from 2001 to 2011, warned about “the bad stuff that AI can do,” when asked whether AI is more destructive than nuclear weapons during a fireside chat at the Sifted Summit”Is there a possibility of a proliferation problem in AI? Absolutely,” Schmidt said Wednesday. The proliferation risks of AI include the technology falling…

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Oct. 9, 2025. Evelyn Hockstein | ReutersPresident Donald Trump on Thursday said his administration plans to use the ongoing government shutdown to permanently cut government programs popular with Democrats, his latest threat amid the funding stalemate.”We’re only cutting Democrat programs,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.It was not immediately clear which programs would fit that description, but Trump specified that they were “very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly.””They wanted to do this,” Trump said, doubling down on…

Polignano a Mare in the Region of Puglia. Italy.Artur Debat | Moment | Getty ImagesUnited Airlines’ summer 2026 international travel plan is out, and smaller European cities are in.Starting April 30, United plans to fly from its hub at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey to Split on the Croatian coast — its second destination in the country. A day later the carrier is launching Newark to Bari in the popular Puglia region of southern Italy on the Adriatic Sea.May 22 is the scheduled launch of a nonstop from Newark to Santiago de Compostela, in the Galicia region of…

An illustration photo shows Sora 2 logo on a smartphone.Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty ImagesThe Creative Artists Agency on Thursday slammed OpenAI’s new video creation app Sora for posing “significant risks” to their clients and intellectual property.The talent agency, which represents artists including Doja Cat, Scarlett Johanson, and Tom Hanks, questioned whether OpenAI believed that “humans, writers, artists, actors, directors, producers, musicians, and athletes deserve to be compensated and credited for the work they create.””Or does Open AI believe they can just steal it, disregarding global copyright principles and blatantly dismissing creators’ rights, as well as the many people…

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday informed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that its economy suffered Rs744 billion in losses due to floods, with 60% of the damage occurring in the agriculture sector and again sought adjustment of these losses against the programme targets. The preliminary damage assessment has been shared with the IMF, as Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb confirmed that the review talks concluded with the global lender on Wednesday. The talks were aimed at securing two loan tranches totalling around $1.2 billion under separate loan programmes. Aurangzeb said that the IMF had shared the Memorandum for Economic and Financial Policies…

People walk past a billboard advertisement for YouTube in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 27, 2019.Sean Gallup | Getty ImagesYouTube is offering creators who were banned from the platform a second chance.On Thursday, the Google-owned platform announced it is rolling out a feature for previously terminated creators to apply to create a new channel. Previous rules led to a lifetime ban.”We know many terminated creators deserve a second chance,” wrote the YouTube Team in a blog post. “We’re looking forward to providing an opportunity for creators to start fresh and bring their voice back to the platform.”Tech companies have faced months…