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Busan, Riyadh or Rome? 2030 World Expo host to be revealed

In a high-profile showdown, Rome, Busan and Riyadh are the top contenders to become the host city of the 2030 World Expo as the organizing body prepares to hold a vote in the French capital on Tuesday.

With the stakes high, each city has escalated its campaign efforts, showcasing unique visions and ambitious promises to secure the rights to the globally prestigious event.

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Musk visits Israel to meet top leaders as accusations of antisemitism on X grow

Elon Musk, who's been under fire over accusations of antisemitism flourishing on his social media platform X, paid a visit Monday to Israel, where he toured a kibbutz that was attacked last month by Hamas militants and was set to meet with top leaders.

The billionaire and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the Kfar Azza kibbutz, which was stormed by Hamas militants on Oct. 7. Musk, wearing a protective vest and escorted by a phalanx of security personnel, used his phone to take photos or videos of the devastation, according to video released by Netanyahu's office.

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Court document claims Meta knowingly designed platforms to hook kids

Facebook parent Meta Platforms deliberately engineered its social platforms to hook kids and knew — but never disclosed — it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint described in reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

The complaint, originally made public in redacted form, was the opening salvo in a lawsuit filed in late October by the attorneys general of 33 states.

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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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