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Meta’s big bet on virtual reality ended last week, with the company reportedly laying off about 1,500 employees in its Reality Lab division (about 10% of the division’s staff) and closing several VR game studios, according to the Wall Street Journal. It’s a huge reversal for a company that staked its entire identity on that concept just four years ago. Few will miss it. As industry watchers may remember, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in 2021, promising a new era of technology led by VR devices. The decision is partly a bet that Gen Z prefers to socialize in online…
london — British shores disappeared under a blanket of uncooked fries and onions after a container ship spilled its cargo earlier this month. A clean-up operation began on Tuesday along the coastline of East Sussex, southeast England, after containers from two cargo ships fell overboard during storms late last year and earlier this month, the local county council said. Joel Bonnici, a resident of the resort town of Eastbourne, told CNN on Monday that onions started appearing on the beach last Wednesday and that he believes some residents went to help retrieve the plastic bags in which the onions were…
Colleen Huber is still recovering. After previously sharing that she was diagnosed with an unspecified cancer and nearly finished radiation treatment on January 12, the ‘The End Is Us’ author shared an encouraging update on her health. “I don’t have cancer anymore,” Coleen wrote on Facebook on January 17 after seeing “misleading” reports that made her appear as if she was “on her deathbed.” “I was diagnosed sometime last year, had successful surgery and just finished radiation yesterday,” she continued. “I’m done, I’m good, everything is good, I’m good. Colleen is grateful to her medical team for how her journey…
Hsinchu, Taiwan – April 16: The entrance to the factory of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company, in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on April 16, 2025. Daniel Cheng | Anadolu | Getty ImagesThe U.S.-Taiwan deal aimed at expanding chip production capacity in the U.S. makes it unlikely that the U.S. government will completely withdraw from Taiwan’s cutting-edge semiconductors anytime soon, and the so-called “silicon shield” remains largely intact for now, multiple analysts told CNBC.Taiwan dominates global chip production, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company producing most of the world’s most advanced chips. It is estimated…
What happens if an AI agent decides the best way to complete a task is to blackmail you? That’s not a hypothesis. Barmak Meftah, a partner at cybersecurity VC firm Ballistic Ventures, said something like this recently happened to an employee at a company working with an AI agent. The employee tried to suppress what the agent wanted to do and what he was trained to do, but the agent scanned the user’s inbox for inappropriate emails and threatened to forward the email to the board of directors to blackmail the user. “In the agent’s mind, it’s doing the right…
Iraq’s government announced on Sunday that U.S. forces have completed a “complete withdrawal” from military installations in the country’s federal territory, excluding the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, where U.S. forces remain. Iraq’s Ministry of Defense announced that the last contingent of American advisers departed from al-Asad Air Base in Iraq’s western Anbar province, which has hosted American troops for more than 20 years. The U.S. military has been making cuts for several years, after the Iraqi government requested cuts in 2023. The ministry statement added that the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group also withdrew from the Joint Operations Command…
Pedestrians in the Huaqiangbei electronic market area in Shenzhen, China, Wednesday, January 14, 2026. Shen Qilai | Shen Qilai Bloomberg | Getty ImagesChina’s economic growth slowed in the fourth quarter to the slowest pace in nearly three years as domestic demand weakened, but full-year growth was in line with Beijing’s target despite escalating trade tensions with the United States and a prolonged real estate recession. Gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 4.5% from October to December, according to data released by the National Statistics Office on Monday. This slowed down from 4.8% in the third quarter and was the lowest…
This photo shows Moonshot AI’s Kimi chatbot displayed on a smartphone.Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesBEIJING – An Alibaba-backed AI startup is now valued at $4.8 billion in a new funding round, two people familiar with the deal said, just weeks after it was valued at $4.3 billion.Moonshot AI is the company behind the Kimi chatbot, which skyrocketed in popularity in China months before DeepSeek was released last year.Since the last moonshot in December, rival Chinese AI companies Zhipu and MiniMax have soared after listing in Hong Kong.Moonshot is closing on a funding round that values the company at least…
Who: Inter Milan vs ArsenalContents: Matchday 7 (of 8), League Phase, UEFA Champions LeagueLocation: San Siro, Milan, ItalyWhen: Tuesday, January 20th, 9pm (20:00 GMT)How to follow: All content will be broadcast on Al Jazeera Sports from 17:00 GMT, ahead of the text commentary stream.Arsenal, currently the only unbeaten side in the UEFA Champions League (UCL), will travel to northern Italy on Tuesday to take on powerhouse Inter Milan after a 40-day break in the tournament schedule.Recommended stories list of 4 itemsend of listWith 18 points from six games so far, the Gunners go into Round 7 as UCL favorites, but…
Tangshan, China – January 1: A nurse breastfeeds a newborn baby at the Mother and Child Health Hospital in Tangshan, Hebei Province, China on January 1, 2026. (Photo by Zhu Dayong/VCG, Getty Images)Zhu Dayong | Visual China Group | Getty ImagesChina’s birth rate hit a record low last year, underscoring the deepening demographic crisis as the government struggles to reverse a declining and aging population. Data compiled by Wind Information dating back to the 1950s shows the number of births will decline from 6.4 in 2023 to 5.6 per 1,000 in 2025, the lowest level on record.Despite efforts by the…