Author: i2wtc

An Amazon device is displayed at an Amazon Devices launch event in New York City on Feb. 26, 2025.Brendan McDermid | ReutersAmazon is hosting a launch event on Tuesday where it’s expected to unveil significant updates to its devices lineup.The event is slated to kick off at 10 a.m. ET and will feature announcements from Panos Panay, who oversees Amazon’s sprawling devices and services business.Invites sent to the media and analysts earlier this month showed what appeared to be an Echo smart speaker, Fire TV, Ring doorbell button and a Kindle e-reader, suggesting what could be in store at the…

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has suspended all no-objection certificates (NOC) for players who want to participate in T20 leagues outside Pakistan, ESPNcricinfo reported on Tuesday. According to the report, PCB Chief Operating Officer Sumair Ahmad Syed issued a notice to the players and their agents, making the announcement. The notification, seen by ESPNcricinfo, read: “With the approval of chairman PCB, all NOCs for players with respect to participation in leagues and other out of country tournaments are hereby put on hold until further orders.” According to the publication, the reason behind the move is currently unknown. “Reports have suggested…

Deep within the bowels of JPMorgan Chase’s data centers and cloud providers, an artificial intelligence program crucial to the bank’s aspirations grows more powerful by the week.The program, called LLM Suite, is a portal created by the bank to harness large language models from the world’s leading AI startups. It currently uses models from OpenAI and Anthropic.Every eight weeks, LLM Suite is updated as the bank feeds it more from the vast databases and software applications of its major businesses, giving the platform more abilities, Derek Waldron, JPMorgan chief data analytics officer, told CNBC in an exclusive interview.”The broad vision…

ISLAMABAD: Health Minister Mustafa Kamal said Pakistan is facing a shortage of nearly 900,000 nurses as he announced the complete digitalisation of the Pakistan Nursing Council (PNC). The health minister chaired a meeting on the affairs of the PNC, attended by the Federal Health Secretary and Additional Secretary. During the session, the Ministry announced to fully digitalisation of the PNC to ensure efficiency, merit, and transparency in all of its operations. Speaking on the occasion, Kamal emphasized that all affairs of the Council will soon be computerized to minimize human intervention and eliminate inefficiencies. “We will restore the lost credibility…

ISLAMABAD: Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security and Research Senator Syed Masroor Ahsan has declared the recent floods a national disaster and called on the government to officially designate affected areas as disaster-hit. He further urged immediate assistance for victims through the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP). The Senate committee, under Senator Ahsan’s chairmanship, met to review a wide range of urgent national food security concerns. The chairman of the Rice Exporters Association raised alarm over the sharp decline in Basmati exports, citing interruptions in shipments to European Union countries. Senator Danesh Kumar also criticised restrictive…

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian football officials on Monday blamed a “technical error” in the document submission process for an Asian Cup qualifier, which prompted FIFA to suspend seven of the country’s national players. The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) vowed to fight FIFA’s ruling on Friday that sent shockwaves through the sport in the football-mad nation, saying so-called “heritage” or naturalised players were legitimate citizens. FIFA slapped a year-long ban on the group — including centre-back Facundo Garces, 26, the first naturalised Malaysian to play in Spain’s La Liga — accusing the FAM of using “doctored documentation to be able to…

ISLAMABAD: Pandemonium gripped the National Assembly on Monday after Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq declared that no member would be allowed to speak “in favour” of Fitna Al-Khawarij or against the ongoing operation, sparking uproar and protests from the opposition benches. The charged session, marked by slogans, heckling and walkouts, quickly devolved into what observers described as an “assembly within an assembly”. Opposition lawmakers, led by Mahmood Khan Achakzai, formed two rows in front of the speaker’s dais and began delivering their own speeches, intensifying the disruption and leaving the house in disarray. Earlier, journalists in the press gallery staged a…

Anna Barclay | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesChinese startup DeepSeek’s latest experimental model promises to increase efficiency and improve AI’s ability to handle a lot of information at a fraction of the cost, but questions remain over how effective and safe the architecture is.  DeepSeek sent Silicon Valley into a frenzy when it launched its first model R1 out of nowhere last year, showing that it’s possible to train large language models (LLMs) quickly, on less powerful chips, using fewer resources.The company released DeepSeek-V3.2-Exp on Monday, an experimental version of its current model DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus, which builds further on its…

PARIS: The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and Paralympics cost the French state 6.6 billion euros ($7.7 billion), the national audit body announced on Monday. The amount is an increase on the initial estimate of 5.9 billion euros in June but the head of the national audit body said it did not represent “budgetary overspending”. Government expenditure on the organisation of the two sporting extravaganzas last summer cost 3.02 billion euros, which included 1.44 billion euros for security. A further 3.63 billion euros were spent on work linked to infrastructure projects. The figures include money spent to ensure that the River…

MUZAFFARABAD: A shutter-down and wheel-jam strike across Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Monday, called by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JKJAAC), paralysed life in major districts before escalating into violence after clashes at Neelum Bridge. Led by JKJAAC central leader Shaukat Nawaz Mir, the strike brought Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, Poonch, Neelum, Bhimber and Palandari to a halt. Markets remained shut, roads were blocked, and internet services were restricted across much of Muzaffarabad, except areas bordering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Landline, cellular and private internet networks were also largely suspended. Tensions flared when activists of the Muslim Conference, holding a parallel…