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‘Fuel’ Program to Train 100,000 Saudi Citizens on Digital Jobs

General view of Riyadh city. Reuters file photo
General view of Riyadh city. Reuters file photo
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‘Fuel’ Program to Train 100,000 Saudi Citizens on Digital Jobs

General view of Riyadh city. Reuters file photo
General view of Riyadh city. Reuters file photo

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the global online learning platform Coursera, in cooperation with the National eLearning Center, have announced the launch of the “Fuel” program to provide training on skills for jobs of the future.

Under the program, a total of 100,000 Saudi citizens will receive training during the first year, during which they will acquire the necessary skills and qualifications for the labor market and vocational development.

The program will be implemented by the Saudi Digital Academy, an initiative of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which works on empowering youth and providing them with the necessary skills for the Kingdom’s digital market.

The program aims at enhancing digital capabilities across the Kingdom and increasing job opportunities for the national cadres as well as reaffirming the Kingdom’s status as a supporter of pioneering talents and as an advanced center for partnerships as per the Saudi Vision 2030.

The strategic partnership will work on serving Saudi males and females, including the job seekers from the graduates and ambitious cadres seeking to enhance their skills in technology through more than 40 educational tracks coordinated in eight labor sectors and more than 200 training courses.

The program will also work on building bridges between Saudi talent and potential employers, with participants provided with the necessary skills to join the labor market to enhance the digital economy and digital transformation.

Saudi Digital Academy CEO Mohammed Al-Suhaim underscored that the partnership comes within the ministry’s keenness on improving the digital competence of Saudi citizens, explaining that the “Fuel” program is in line with the academy’s goals to provide youth with the necessary tools and knowledge to excel in the digital age.

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Technology

Illness Took Away Her Voice. AI Created a Replica She Carries in Her Phone

Alexis Bogan, whose speech was impaired by a brain tumor, uses an AI powered smartphone app to create a audible drink order at a Starbucks drive-thru on Monday, April 29, 2024, in Lincoln, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Alexis Bogan, whose speech was impaired by a brain tumor, uses an AI powered smartphone app to create a audible drink order at a Starbucks drive-thru on Monday, April 29, 2024, in Lincoln, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
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Illness Took Away Her Voice. AI Created a Replica She Carries in Her Phone

Alexis Bogan, whose speech was impaired by a brain tumor, uses an AI powered smartphone app to create a audible drink order at a Starbucks drive-thru on Monday, April 29, 2024, in Lincoln, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Alexis Bogan, whose speech was impaired by a brain tumor, uses an AI powered smartphone app to create a audible drink order at a Starbucks drive-thru on Monday, April 29, 2024, in Lincoln, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

The voice Alexis “Lexi” Bogan had before last summer was exuberant.
She loved to belt out Taylor Swift and Zach Bryan ballads in the car. She laughed all the time — even while corralling misbehaving preschoolers or debating politics with friends over a backyard fire pit. In high school, she was a soprano in the chorus.
Then that voice was gone.
Doctors in August removed a life-threatening tumor lodged near the back of her brain. When the breathing tube came out a month later, Bogan had trouble swallowing and strained to say “hi” to her parents. Months of rehabilitation aided her recovery, but her speech is still impaired. Friends, strangers and her own family members struggle to understand what she is trying to tell them.
In April, the 21-year-old got her old voice back. Not the real one, but a voice clone generated by artificial intelligence that she can summon from a phone app. Trained on a 15-second time capsule of her teenage voice — sourced from a cooking demonstration video she recorded for a high school project — her synthetic but remarkably real-sounding AI voice can now say almost anything she wants.
She types a few words or sentences into her phone and the app instantly reads it aloud.
“Hi, can I please get a grande iced brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso,” said Bogan’s AI voice as she held the phone out her car’s window at a Starbucks drive-thru.
Experts have warned that rapidly improving AI voice-cloning technology can amplify phone scams, disrupt democratic elections and violate the dignity of people — living or dead — who never consented to having their voice recreated to say things they never spoke.
It's been used to produce deepfake robocalls to New Hampshire voters mimicking President Joe Biden. In Maryland, authorities recently charged a high school athletic director with using AI to generate a fake audio clip of the school’s principal making racist remarks.
But Bogan and a team of doctors at Rhode Island's Lifespan hospital group believe they've found a use that justifies the risks. Bogan is one of the first people — the only one with her condition — who have been able to recreate a lost voice with OpenAI’s new Voice Engine. Some other AI providers, such as the startup ElevenLabs, have tested similar technology for people with speech impediments and loss — including a lawyer who now uses her voice clone in the courtroom.
“We’re hoping Lexi's a trailblazer as the technology develops,” said Dr. Rohaid Ali, a neurosurgery resident at Brown University's medical school and Rhode Island Hospital. Millions of people with debilitating strokes, throat cancer or neurogenerative diseases could benefit, he said.
“We should be conscious of the risks, but we can’t forget about the patient and the social good,” said Dr. Fatima Mirza, another resident working on the pilot. “We’re able to help give Lexi back her true voice and she’s able to speak in terms that are the most true to herself.”
Mirza and Ali, who are married, caught the attention of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI because of their previous research project at Lifespan using the AI chatbot to simplify medical consent forms for patients. The San Francisco company reached out while on the hunt earlier this year for promising medical applications for its new AI voice generator.
Bogan was still slowly recovering from surgery. The illness started last summer with headaches, blurry vision and a droopy face, alarming doctors at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence. They discovered a vascular tumor the size of a golf ball pressing on her brain stem and entangled in blood vessels and cranial nerves.
“It was a battle to get control of the bleeding and get the tumor out,” said pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Konstantina Svokos.
The 10-hour length of the surgery coupled with the tumor's location and severity damaged Bogan's tongue muscles and vocal cords, impeding her ability to eat and talk, Svokos said.
“It’s almost like a part of my identity was taken when I lost my voice,” Bogan said.
The feeding tube came out this year. Speech therapy continues, enabling her to speak intelligibly in a quiet room but with no sign she will recover the full lucidity of her natural voice.
“At some point, I was starting to forget what I sounded like," Bogan said. “I’ve been getting so used to how I sound now.”
Whenever the phone rang at the family's home in the Providence suburb of North Smithfield, she would push it over to her mother to take her calls. She felt she was burdening her friends whenever they went to a noisy restaurant. Her dad, who has hearing loss, struggled to understand her.
Back at the hospital, doctors were looking for a pilot patient to experiment with OpenAI's technology.
“The first person that came to Dr. Svokos’ mind was Lexi,” Ali said. “We reached out to Lexi to see if she would be interested, not knowing what her response would be. She was game to try it out and see how it would work."
Bogan had to go back a few years to find a suitable recording of her voice to “train” the AI system on how she spoke. It was a video in which she explained how to make a pasta salad.
Her doctors intentionally fed the AI system just a 15-second clip. Cooking sounds make other parts of the video imperfect. It was also all that OpenAI needed — an improvement over previous technology requiring much lengthier samples.
They also knew that getting something useful out of 15 seconds could be vital for any future patients who have no trace of their voice on the internet. A brief voicemail left for a relative might have to suffice.
When they tested it for the first time, everyone was stunned by the quality of the voice clone. Occasional glitches — a mispronounced word, a missing intonation — were mostly imperceptible. In April, doctors equipped Bogan with a custom-built phone app that only she can use.
“I get so emotional every time I hear her voice,” said her mother, Pamela Bogan, tears in her eyes.
"I think it’s awesome that I can have that sound again,” added Lexi Bogan, saying it helped “boost my confidence to somewhat where it was before all this happened.”
She now uses the app about 40 times a day and sends feedback she hopes will help future patients. One of her first experiments was to speak to the kids at the preschool where she works as a teaching assistant. She typed in “ha ha ha ha” expecting a robotic response. To her surprise, it sounded like her old laugh.
She's used it at Target and Marshall's to ask where to find items. It's helped her reconnect with her dad. And it's made it easier for her to order fast food.
Bogan's doctors have started cloning the voices of other willing Rhode Island patients and hope to bring the technology to hospitals around the world. OpenAI said it is treading cautiously in expanding the use of Voice Engine, which is not yet publicly available.
A number of smaller AI startups already sell voice-cloning services to entertainment studios or make them more widely available. Most voice-generation vendors say they prohibit impersonation or abuse, but they vary in how they enforce their terms of use.
“We want to make sure that everyone whose voice is used in the service is consenting on an ongoing basis,” said Jeff Harris, OpenAI's lead on the product. “We want to make sure that it’s not used in political contexts. So we’ve taken an approach of being very limited in who we’re giving the technology to.”
Harris said OpenAI's next step involves developing a secure “voice authentication” tool so that users can replicate only their own voice. That might be “limiting for a patient like Lexi, who had sudden loss of her speech capabilities,” he said. "So we do think that we’ll need to have high-trust relationships, especially with medical providers, to give a little bit more unfettered access to the technology.”
Bogan has impressed her doctors with her focus on thinking about how the technology could help others with similar or more severe speech impediments.
“Part of what she has done throughout this entire process is think about ways to tweak and change this,” Mirza said. “She’s been a great inspiration for us.”
While for now she must fiddle with her phone to get the voice engine to talk, Bogan imagines an AI voice engine that improves upon older remedies for speech recovery — such as the robotic-sounding electrolarynx or a voice prosthesis — in melding with the human body or translating words in real time.
She's less sure about what will happen as she grows older and her AI voice continues to sound like she did as a teenager. Maybe the technology could “age” her AI voice, she said.
For now, "even though I don’t have my voice fully back, I have something that helps me find my voice again,” she said.

Technology

US, China Meet in Geneva to Discuss AI Risks 

An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. (Reuters)
An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. (Reuters)
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US, China Meet in Geneva to Discuss AI Risks 

An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. (Reuters)
An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. (Reuters)

The US and China will meet in Geneva to discuss advanced artificial intelligence on Tuesday, US officials said, stressing that Washington's policies would not be up for negotiation even as the talks explore mitigating risks from the emerging technology.

President Joe Biden's administration has sought to engage China on a range of issues to reduce miscommunication between the two rivals. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi broached the topic of AI in April in Beijing, where they agreed to hold their first formal bilateral talks on the subject.

The State Department has pressed China and Russia to match US declarations that only humans, and never artificial intelligence, would make decisions on deploying nuclear weapons.

"This is the first meeting of its kind. So, we expect to have a discussion of the full range of risks, but wouldn't prejudge any specifics at this point," a senior administration official told reporters ahead of the meeting when asked if the US would prioritize the nuclear weapons issue.

China's rapid deployment of AI capabilities across civilian, military and national security sectors often undermined the security of the US and its allies, the official said, adding the talks would allow Washington to directly communicate its concerns.

"To be very clear, talks with Beijing are not focused on promoting any form of technical collaboration or cooperating on frontier research in any matter. And our technology protection policies are not up for negotiation," the official added.

Reuters has reported that the Biden administration plans to put guardrails on US-developed proprietary AI models that power popular chatbots like ChatGPT to safeguard the technology from countries such as China and Russia.

A second US official briefing reporters said Washington and Beijing were competing to shape the rules on AI, but also hoped to explore whether some rules could be "embraced by all countries."

"We certainly don't see eye to eye ... on many AI topics and applications, but we believe that communication on critical AI risks can make the world safer," the second official said.

US National Security Council official Tarun Chhabra and Seth Center, the State Department's acting special envoy for critical and emerging technology, will lead the talks with officials from China's Foreign Ministry and state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission.

US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer plans to issue recommendations in coming weeks to address risks from AI, which he says will then be translated into piecemeal legislation.

He has cited competition with China and its divergent goals for AI, including surveillance and facial recognition applications, as reason for Washington's need to take a lead in crafting laws around the rapidly advancing technology.

Chinese authorities have been emphasizing the need for the country to develop its own "controllable" AI technology.

Technology

Riyadh Hosts Third Edition of Global AI Summit in September

A general view of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (SPA)
A general view of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (SPA)
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Riyadh Hosts Third Edition of Global AI Summit in September

A general view of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (SPA)
A general view of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (SPA)

The third edition of the Global AI Summit will be held in Riyadh from September 10 to 12 under the patronage of Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA).

In a statement, SDAIA President Dr. Abdullah bin Sharaf Al-Ghamdi expressed his gratitude to Crown Prince Mohammed for his unwavering support for the Global AI Summit.

He emphasized the pivotal role this patronage plays in advancing the national data and AI agenda, maximizing the benefits of cutting-edge technologies, and improving the Kingdom's global standing and reinforcing its leadership position in the field.

“This summit builds on the remarkable achievements of its previous editions, held in 2020 and 2022 under the gracious patronage of the Crown Prince,” he added.

“The third edition of the summit distinguishes itself through its extensive range of topics covering diverse areas of global interest in data and AI. This is particularly significant considering the rapid progress of these technologies and their profound impact on individuals and institutions,” he stressed.

The summit will cover key topics in the field of AI, such as innovation and industry trends, shaping a brighter future for AI, and cultivating an enabling environment for human talent.

Sub-themes will delve into various issues, including local and global AI applications, the integral relationship between humans and AI, business leadership in AI, the correlation between data and applications, generative AI, AI ethics, AI processing and infrastructure, and the role of AI in smart cities.

Al-Ghamdi extended an invitation to leading AI policymakers and individuals passionate about data and innovation to participate in the upcoming summit.

The gathering aims to tackle critical issues surrounding AI development and establish a framework for its responsible use.

According to Al-Ghamdi, the summit is expected to have a positive impact both locally and internationally. It aims to strengthen the Kingdom's role in supporting the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, thus contributing to a better future for all.

Al-Ghamdi underscored the summit's significance to Saudi Vision 2030, led by Crown Prince Mohammed, and said it aspires to make Riyadh a global compass for AI advancements, fostering collaboration on responsible AI development that benefits humanity as a whole.

Attendees will gain insights from prominent international decision makers, ministers, heads of organizations, and tech CEOs.

The summit will facilitate interaction with leading data scientists and AI researchers, offering a global perspective on cutting-edge developments.

The event is expected to witness the signing of local and international agreements, which will form the foundation of future international initiatives in AI led by Saudi Arabia.

Al-Ghamdi said the third edition of the summit underscores the Kingdom's ambition, as envisioned by Crown Prince Mohammed, to become a leading global model in the AI field.

Technology

Ford to Build New Partly Electric Car at Spanish Plant From 2027

Ford currently assembles its Kuga SUV at the plant, which employs 4,800 people ( Reuters)
Ford currently assembles its Kuga SUV at the plant, which employs 4,800 people ( Reuters)
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Ford to Build New Partly Electric Car at Spanish Plant From 2027

Ford currently assembles its Kuga SUV at the plant, which employs 4,800 people ( Reuters)
Ford currently assembles its Kuga SUV at the plant, which employs 4,800 people ( Reuters)

US automaker Ford plans to start production of a new partly electric car at its plant in the Valencia region of Spain starting in 2027, a company spokesperson said on Friday.

Ford had said in March that it was considering making a new, multi-energy passenger car at its Valencia plant, Reuters reported.

Spain's Industry Ministry said the carmaker aimed to produce 300,000 units of the new vehicle annually. "It is a model that will guarantee the workload for this factory and prepare it for the future," the ministry said in a statement.

Ford currently assembles its Kuga SUV at the plant, which employs 4,800 people, after cutting back output of other models in recent years.

The Ford Spain spokesperson said the new car will be assembled for markets in Europe and elsewhere.

Technology

Chinese EV Maker Zeekr’s Shares Indicated to Open up to 19% Above IPO Price

China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing -Reuters
China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing -Reuters
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Chinese EV Maker Zeekr’s Shares Indicated to Open up to 19% Above IPO Price

China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing -Reuters
China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing -Reuters

Shares of Zeekr Intelligent Technology were indicated to open up to 19% above their initial public offering price on Friday, giving the China-based electric-vehicle maker a potential fully diluted valuation of $6.55 billion.

The debut would mark the first major US listing by a Chinese company since 2021 amid fierce competition in China between electric-vehicle makers that have hurt their profits - and as many push to expand outside China.

Zeekr is the premium brand of Chinese automaker Geely, which also owns Sweden's Volvo Cars and the UK's Lotus. It was formed in 2021 to tap into growing Chinese demand for premium models, and has delivered nearly 200,000 cars so far, according to its IPO filing, mostly in China.

The company is one of a number of Chinese automakers, including BYD, SAIC and Great Wall Motor that are targeting Europe, rolling out electric models as they seek to compete with legacy European automakers on their turf. Chinese EV sales in Europe have soared in recent years.

Shares of EV companies in the United States have lost substantial value in recent months, including Tesla, the leading US EV maker, which has dropped 30% this year, Reuters reported.

Rivian Automotive has lost 85% since its IPO in November 2021, while Lucid Group is left with a fourth of what it fetched when it signed a deal with a blank-check firm earlier that year.

Zeekr, however, upsized its IPO, indicating strong demand from investors. It sold 21 million American depositary shares (ADSs) at $21 each to raise $441 million. It had earlier planned to sell 17.5 million ADSs at a price between $18 and $21 apiece.

Since the start of the year, the company's deliveries have overtaken its nearest competitors.

Zeekr delivered 49,148 vehicles in the first four months ended April 30, while Xpeng delivered 31,214 units and Nio delivered 45,673 cars during the same period, according to regulatory filings and press releases.

The share flotation comes during rising tension between the world's two biggest economies over trade, intellectual property, Taiwan and China's stance on the Russia-Ukraine war.

The IPO gives Zeekr a fully diluted valuation, which includes securities such as options and restricted stock units, of $5.5 billion at the high end of its targeted range, but still lower than the $13 billion it fetched after a funding round last year.

The discount to last year's valuation could help draw in investors, said Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell.

"They're able to buy into a growing business at a fraction of last year's valuation. Everyone loves a perceived bargain."

The number of Chinese companies that have pursued stock market flotations in the United States in the past few years has dropped, after Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Global was forced to delist its shares following a backlash from Chinese regulators.

Beijing has since softened its stance and released a set of rules last year to revive such listings, after the US accounting watchdog and China resolved a longstanding audit dispute in December 2022.

Technology

Einstein and Anime: Hong Kong University Tests AI Professors

Students at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology use virtual reality headsets in class. Peter PARKS / AFP
Students at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology use virtual reality headsets in class. Peter PARKS / AFP
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Einstein and Anime: Hong Kong University Tests AI Professors

Students at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology use virtual reality headsets in class. Peter PARKS / AFP
Students at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology use virtual reality headsets in class. Peter PARKS / AFP

Using virtual reality headsets, students at a Hong Kong university travel to a pavilion above the clouds to watch an AI-generated Albert Einstein explain game theory.
The students are part of a course at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) that is testing the use of "AI lecturers" as the artificial intelligence revolution hits campuses around the world, AFP said.
The mass availability of tools such as ChatGPT has sparked optimism about new leaps in productivity and teaching, but also fears over cheating, plagiarism and the replacement of human instructors.
Professor Pan Hui, the project lead for HKUST's AI project, is not worried about being replaced by the tech and believes it can actually help ease what he described as a global shortage of teachers.
"AI teachers can bring in diversity, bring in an interesting aspect, and even immersive storytelling," Hui told AFP.
In his "Social Media for Creatives" course, AI-generated instructors teach 30 post-graduate students about immersive technologies and the impact of digital platforms.
These instructors are generated after presentation slides are fed into a program. The looks, voices and gestures of the avatars can be customized, and they can be displayed on a screen or VR headsets.
This is mixed with in-person teaching by Hui, who says the system frees human lecturers from the "more tedious" parts of their job.
For student Lerry Yang, whose PhD research focuses on the metaverse, the advantage of AI lecturers was in the ability to tailor them to individual preferences and boost learning.
If the AI teacher "makes me feel more mentally receptive, or if it feels approachable and friendly, that erases the feeling of distance between me and the professor", she told AFP.
- 'Everybody's doing it' -
Educators around the world are grappling with the growing use of generative AI, from trying to reliably detect plagiarism to setting the boundaries for the use of such tools.
While initially hesitant, most Hong Kong universities last year allowed students to use AI to degrees that vary from course to course.
At HKUST, Hui is testing avatars with different genders and ethnic backgrounds, including the likenesses of renowned academic figures such as Einstein and the economist John Nash.
"So far, the most popular type of lecturers are young, beautiful ladies," Hui said.
An experiment with Japanese anime characters split opinion, said Christie Pang, a PhD student working with Hui on the project.
"Those who liked it really loved it. But some students felt they couldn't trust what (the lecturer) said," she said.
There could be a future where AI teachers surpass humans in terms of trustworthiness, Hui said, though he said he preferred a mix of the two.
"We as university teachers will better take care of our students in, for example, their emotional intelligence, creativity and critical thinking," he said.
For now, despite the wow factor for students, the technology is far from the level where it could pose a serious threat to human teachers.
It cannot interact with students or answer questions and like all AI-powered content generators, it can offer false, even bizarre answers -- sometimes called “hallucinations".
In a survey of more than 400 students last year, University of Hong Kong professor Cecilia Chan found that respondents preferred humans over digital avatars.
"(Students) still prefer to talk to a real person, because a real teacher would provide their own experience, feedback and empathy," said Chan, who researches the intersection of AI and education.
"Would you prefer to hear from a computer 'Well done'?"
That said, students are already using AI tools to help them learn, Chan added.
"Everybody's doing it."
At HKUST, Hui's student Yang echoed that view: "You just can't go against the advancement of this technology."

Technology

Apple Apologizes for iPad Pro 'Crush' ad

Apple CEO Tim Cook arrives for the release of the Vision Pro headset at the Apple Store in New York City on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
Apple CEO Tim Cook arrives for the release of the Vision Pro headset at the Apple Store in New York City on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
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Apple Apologizes for iPad Pro 'Crush' ad

Apple CEO Tim Cook arrives for the release of the Vision Pro headset at the Apple Store in New York City on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
Apple CEO Tim Cook arrives for the release of the Vision Pro headset at the Apple Store in New York City on February 2, 2024. (AFP)

Apple apologized on Thursday after an advertisement for its latest iPad Pro model sparked criticism by showing an animation of musical instruments and other symbols of creativity being crushed, Ad Age magazine reported.

"Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry,” Ad Age quoted the iPhone maker as saying, Reuters reported.

The advertisement titled "Crush" has over a million views on Apple's YouTube channel and was shared by CEO Tim Cook on social media platform X. It shows a variety of creative tools and objects such as a camera, guitar, piano and paint being destroyed by an industrial crusher.

Then the crusher reveals the newly unveiled iPad, symbolizing how much the new thinner model encompasses.

Online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and an unwelcome departure from the company's historic positioning of its brand as nonconformist, human friendly and an antidote to a dystopian, colorless world.

In a post on X, actor Hugh Grant said the ad showed “the destruction of the human experience courtesy of Silicon Valley.”

The Cupertino-California based tech giant unveiled the tablet on Tuesday with a new chip for artificial intelligence computing as it rushes to catch up with its Big Tech rivals in a race to dominate the emerging technology.

Apple said the iPad Pro, which became available for order on Thursday, has upgraded displays and is "the thinnest Apple product ever."

Technology

Saudi Team Leaves Kingdom for United States to Participate in ISEF 2024

This year marks the 18th consecutive year of Saudi participation - SPA
This year marks the 18th consecutive year of Saudi participation - SPA
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Saudi Team Leaves Kingdom for United States to Participate in ISEF 2024

This year marks the 18th consecutive year of Saudi participation - SPA
This year marks the 18th consecutive year of Saudi participation - SPA

The Saudi Science and Engineering Team left Riyadh to participate in the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF 2024), which will be held in Los Angeles, United States, from May 10 to 18.
Thirty-five Saudi female and male students from the King Abdulaziz and his Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity -- "Mawhiba” -- will be competing with 1,700 peers from 70 countries in ISEF, the world’s largest and most prestigious pre-college competition in scientific research and innovation, SPA reported.
Mawhiba said that the Science and Engineering Team includes elite Saudi students who were chosen from among more than 210,000 students from various regions of the Kingdom at the beginning of this year. Their scientific projects passed through various judging stages during the "Ibdaa" National Olympiad for Scientific Creativity until they were reduced to 180, out of which 35 talented students were nominated to represent the Kingdom in ISEF out of the 45 students whose projects qualified to the Olympiad’s finals.
The foundation underlined that the students nominated to represent the Kingdom in ISEF 2024 underwent intensive training given by Saudi and foreign academic trainers and experts in various disciplines to develop their skills and qualify them to participate in the exhibition through integrated efforts of a number of national incubators and supporters, including universities and research centers, parents, families, and teachers.
Represented by Mawhiba, the Kingdom also participates in ISEF 2024 exhibition as a main sponsor and offers special prizes for the best participating projects in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), which include paid scholarships for undergraduate study at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, as well as scholarships to participate in the Mawhiba Universal Enrichment Program.
Saudi Arabia extends its impressive streak in international science competitions. This year marks the 18th consecutive year of participation, with a remarkable track record to show for it. Since 2007, Saudi students have claimed a staggering 133 awards, including 92 grand prizes and 41 special distinctions. This exceptional achievement underscores the Kingdom's dedicated efforts to foster a culture of innovation and propel scientific excellence among its youth.

Technology

Google DeepMind Unveils Next Generation of Drug Discovery AI Model

Google DeepMind logo is seen near computer motherboard in this illustration taken January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Google DeepMind logo is seen near computer motherboard in this illustration taken January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Google DeepMind Unveils Next Generation of Drug Discovery AI Model

Google DeepMind logo is seen near computer motherboard in this illustration taken January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Google DeepMind logo is seen near computer motherboard in this illustration taken January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Google Deepmind has unveiled the third major version of its "AlphaFold" artificial intelligence model, designed to help scientists design drugs and target disease more effectively.
In 2020, the company made a significant advance in molecular biology by using AI to successfully predict the behavior of microscopic proteins.
With the latest incarnation of AlphaFold, researchers at DeepMind and sister company Isomorphic Labs – both overseen by cofounder Demis Hassabis – have mapped the behavior for all of life's molecules, including human DNA.
The interactions of proteins - from enzymes crucial to the human metabolism, to the antibodies that fight infectious diseases - with other molecules is key to drug discovery and development.
DeepMind said the findings, published in research journal Nature on Wednesday, would reduce the time and money needed to develop potentially life-changing treatments.
“With these new capabilities, we can design a molecule that will bind to a specific place on a protein, and we can predict how strongly it will bind,” Hassabis said in a press briefing on Tuesday.
“It's a critical step if you want to design drugs and compounds that will help with disease.”
The company also announced the release of the “AlphaFold server”, a free online tool that scientists can use to test their hypotheses before running real-world tests.
Since 2021, AlphaFold’s predictions have been freely accessible to non-commercial researchers, as part of a database containing more than 200 million protein structures, and has been cited thousands of times in others’ work.
DeepMind said the new server required less computing knowledge, allowing researchers to run tests with just a few clicks of a button.
John Jumper, a senior research scientist at DeepMind, said: “It’s going to be really important how much easier the AlphaFold server makes it for biologists – who are experts in biology, not computer science – to test larger, more complex cases."
Dr Nicole Wheeler, an expert in microbiology at the University of Birmingham, said AlphaFold 3 could significantly speed up the drug discovery pipeline, as "physically producing and testing biological designs is a big bottleneck in biotechnology at the moment".

Technology

Google Fights $17 bln UK Lawsuit over adtech Practices

The google app is seen on a smartphone. Reuters
The google app is seen on a smartphone. Reuters
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Google Fights $17 bln UK Lawsuit over adtech Practices

The google app is seen on a smartphone. Reuters
The google app is seen on a smartphone. Reuters

Google parent Alphabet has urged a London tribunal to block a mass lawsuit which accuses it of abusing its dominance in the online advertising market, in the latest case to focus on the search giant's business practices.

The lawsuit seeks damages of up to 13.6 billion pounds ($16.9 billion) on behalf of publishers of websites and apps based in the United Kingdom, who say they have suffered losses due to Google's allegedly anticompetitive behaviour, Reuters reported.

Lawyers for Ad Tech Collective Action asked the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) to certify the case to proceed towards a trial at the start of a three-day hearing on Wednesday.

Google, however, said the case was incoherent and did not explain how alleged anticompetitive conduct had supposedly caused losses to the publishers.

Ad Tech Collective Action's lawyer Robert O'Donoghue said the London lawsuit was "the latest in a series of major set-preferencing abuse cases involving Google".

The case comes amid ongoing probes by regulators into Google's adtech business, including by Britain's Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission, which O'Donoghue said was concluding imminently.

O'Donoghue also referred to two multibillion-euro fines levied on Google by the European Commission, over its online shopping search service and the requirement to pre-install Google Search and its Chrome browser on Android mobile devices.

Google is also fighting two lawsuits in the U.S., one brought by the Department of Justice and another by Texas and other states, accusing the company of anticompetitive conduct.

The company "strongly rejects the underlying allegations against it", its lawyers said in court documents for the CAT case. "Google's impact in the ad tech industry has been hugely procompetitive."

Ad Tech Collective Action's proposed lawsuit is the latest against a tech giant at the CAT, which already this year has certified a $3.8 billion case against Facebook parent Meta and a nearly $1 billion case against Apple. (