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Last new Beatles song, 'Now And Then,' to be released next week

Sixty years after the onset of Beatlemania and with two of the quartet now dead, artificial intelligence has enabled the release next week of what is promised to be the last "new" Beatles song.

The track, called "Now And Then," will be available Thursday, Nov. 2, as part of a single paired with "Love Me Do," the very first Beatles single that came out in 1962 in England, it was announced Thursday.

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1 year later, X struggles with misinformation, advertising and usage decline

One year ago, billionaire and new owner Elon Musk walked into Twitter's San Francisco headquarters with a white bathroom sink and a grin, fired its CEO and other top executives and began transforming the social media platform into what is now known as X.

X looks and feels something like Twitter, but the more time you spend on it the clearer it becomes that it's merely an approximation. Musk has dismantled core features of what made Twitter, Twitter — its name and blue bird logo, its verification system, its Trust and Safety advisory group. Not to mention content moderation and hate speech enforcement.

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Musk's X has taken down hundreds of Hamas-linked accounts, CEO says

Elon Musk's social media platform X has removed hundreds of Hamas-linked accounts and taken down or labeled thousands of pieces of content since the militant group's attack on Israel, according to the CEO of the company formerly known as Twitter.

Linda Yaccarino on Thursday outlined efforts by X to get a handle on illegal content flourishing on the platform. She was responding to a demand from a top European Union official this week for information on how X is complying with the EU's tough new digital rules during the Israel-Hamas war.

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Taiwan probes firms suspected of selling chip equipment to China's Huawei despite US sanctions

Taiwan authorities are investigating four Taiwan-based companies suspected of helping China's Huawei Technologies to build semiconductor facilities.

Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua said Friday that the investigation will determine if the companies have violated regulations prohibiting sales of sensitive technologies and equipment to China.

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Zuckerberg kicks off developer conference with focus on AI, virtual reality

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the tech giant's Connect developer conference on Wednesday with a focus on virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence

The company, which renamed itself Meta two years ago, unveiled the next version of its virtual reality headset, the Quest 3. It will cost $499 and begin shipping Oct. 10.

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Threat of wildfires is rising, so are new artificial intelligence solutions to fight them

Wildfires fueled by climate change have ravaged communities from Maui to the Mediterranean this summer, killing many people, exhausting firefighters and fueling demand for new solutions. Enter artificial intelligence.

Firefighters and startups are using AI-enabled cameras to scan the horizon for signs of smoke. A German company is building a constellation of satellites to detect fires from space. And Microsoft is using AI models to predict where the next blaze could be sparked.

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EU hits Intel with $400 million antitrust fine in long-running computer chip case

European Union antitrust enforcers slapped Intel on Friday with a fresh $400 million fine in a long-running legal fight that the chipmaker appeared to have won last year.

The European Commission imposed the 376.4 million-euro fine after a court threw out an original 1.06 billion-euro penalty issued in 2009 over allegations that the Santa Clara, California-based company used illegal sales tactics to shut out smaller rival AMD.

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Microsoft's revamped $69 billion deal for Activision on the cusp of going through

British competition regulators gave preliminary approval Friday to Microsoft's restructured $69 billion deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard, easing a final global hurdle that paves the way for one of the largest tech transactions in history to go through.

The Competition and Markets Authority said the revamped proposal "substantially addresses previous concerns" about stifling competition in the fast-growing cloud gaming market, which frees players from buying expensive consoles and gaming computers by streaming to tablets, phones and other devices.

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Macron backpedals after castigating video games during riots

French President Emmanuel Macron is extending an olive branch to video gamers after previously linking computer games to rioting that rocked France earlier this year.

Posting on social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, Macron backpedaled on remarks in June where he blamed video games for having "intoxicated" some young rioters.

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Google brings its AI chatbot Bard into Gmail, Maps, YouTube

Google is introducing Bard, its artificially intelligent chatbot, to other members of its digital family — including Gmail, Maps and YouTube — as it seeks ward off competitive threats posed by similar technology run by Open AI and Microsoft.

Bard's expanded capabilities announced Tuesday will be provided through an English-only extension that will enable users to allow the chatbot to mine information embedded in their Gmail accounts as well as pull directions from Google Maps and find helpful videos on YouTube. The extension will also open a door for Bard to fetch travel information from Google Flights and extract information from documents stored on Google Drive.

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