Amid controversies, Facebook trumpets massive new supercomputer

Facebook's parent company Meta announced on Monday it was launching one of the world's most powerful supercomputers to boost its capacity to process data, despite persistent disputes over privacy and disinformation.

The US tech giant said the array of machines could process images and video up to 20 times faster than their current systems.

The supercomputer, built from thousands of processors, will be used to "seamlessly analyze text, images, and video together; develop new augmented reality tools; and much more", the firm said in blog post written by two of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers.

They envisage developing AI tools that will, among other things, allow people speaking in several different languages to understand each other in real-time.

Meta said the machine, known as AI Research SuperCluster (RSC), was already in the top five fastest supercomputers and would become the fastest AI machine in the world when fully built in the next few months.

Platforms such as Facebook and Google have long been criticized for the way they process and utilise the data they take from their users.

The two firms currently face legal cases across the European Union that allege data transfers from the bloc to the United States are illegal.

And the AI algorithms that funnel Facebook users towards appealing posts have been criticized for helping to fuel disinformation and hate speech.

- 'Metaverse' hopes -

Facebook has apologised repeatedly about the adverse effects of its algorithms and has long flagged its investment in content moderators and other measures to tackle problematic posts.

The blog on Monday stressed that weeding out harmful content was among the "critical use cases" for its AI development.

The researchers wrote that high-definition video was creating ever greater demand for processing power at the same time as the company was pushing for AI tools based on trillions of examples.

"We hope RSC will help us build entirely new AI systems that can, for example, power real-time voice translations to large groups of people, each speaking a different language, so they can seamlessly collaborate on a research project or play an AR game together," wrote the researchers.

"Ultimately, the work done with RSC will pave the way toward building technologies for the next major computing platform -- the metaverse, where AI-driven applications and products will play an important role."

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing harder than his big tech rivals to develop the idea of the metaverse, which envisages an immersive 3D internet enabled by virtual reality headsets and sensor equipment.

Facebook has not yet confirmed the location of its supercomputer, telling AFP the information was confidential.

Agence France-Presse

France posts single-day record 464,000 COVID-19 cases

France's daily reported new coronavirus cases broke a new record on Tuesday with an average of over 300,000 a day in the past week, with the headline figure approaching half a million.

The latest data issued by Public Health France showed that there were 464,769 new cases in the last 24-hour period as the omicron variant of COVID-19 spread unabated.

A day earlier, 102,144 people had tested positive for the virus.

The average daily number of new cases over the past 7 days has surpassed 300,000, the latest data showed.

French teachers' unions called Monday for a second major strike this week to protest the government's COVID testing and isolation protocols, which they say are severely disrupting classes.

The move follows a 1-day walkout last week that saw half of the country's primary schools close, according to unions, who accuse authorities of failing to establish clear rules that would keep as many students in school as possible.

Teachers say class disruptions have become unmanageable with the spread of the highly contagious omicron COVID-19 variant, with many parents struggling to get vaccination appointments for their children and long lines for tests forming outside pharmacies.

In response the government promised to provide five million high-grade FFP2 face masks for school staff and to hire over 3,000 substitute teachers to replace those forced to isolate after contracting COVID or coming into contact with an infected person.

Agence France-Presse

NBA: Klay Thompson (21 points) guides Warriors past Pistons

Klay Thompson had the best performance of his five-game-old season Tuesday night, hitting three 3-pointers among a game-high 21 points as the Golden State Warriors opened a seven-game homestand with a 102-86 romp over the Detroit Pistons in San Francisco.

Andrew Wiggins chipped in with 19 points and Stephen Curry had 18. Thompson, still early in his comeback from ACL and Achilles injuries, played 22 minutes.

Rodney McGruder, playing for the first time since his trade to the Denver Nuggets was voided, paced the Pistons with a season-high 19 points off the bench.Coming off a 1-3 trip, the Warriors wasted little time getting back in the swing of things, getting nine points from Wiggins, six from Curry and five from Thompson in a game-opening, 26-13 flurry.

The advantage mushroomed to 66-38 by halftime and maxed out at 73-39 in the fourth minute of the third quarter before the Warriors coasted to their third consecutive home win.

Thompson, who had shot just 35.7 percent both overall and on 3-point attempts while averaging 13.8 points in his first four games, went 6-for-13 from the field and 3-for-8 from long distance.

He also made all six of his free throws, making him 11-for-11 at the line for the season.

Curry, who also found time for a game-high eight assists and three steals, added four 3-pointers and Wiggins had three for the Warriors, who outscored the Pistons 42-27 from beyond the arc.

Golden State rookie Jonathan Kuminga responded to his third start of the season with his first double-double, grabbing a season-best 10 rebounds to complement 12 points.

Kevon Looney also had 10 rebounds for the Warriors, who outrebounded the guests 54-50.

McGruder, who had been inactive for Detroit's previous three games, scored 11 more points than he'd recorded in any game this season. He sank four of the Pistons' nine 3-pointers.

Hamidou Diallo added 16 points, Isaiah Stewart 14, Trey Lyles 13 and Saddiq Bey 10 for the Pistons, who had won three of their previous five games.

Rookie Cade Cunningham shot just 3-for-10 and was limited to eight points for Detroit, which was opening a four-game Western swing that continues Wednesday night in Sacramento.

Diallo and Stewart both logged double-doubles, Diallo with a game-high 13 rebounds and Stewart with 11 boards.

-reuters

Endemic coronavirus would not mean end of danger, says WHO

The World Health Organization on Tuesday warned against the notion that the Covid-19 pandemic becoming endemic would mean the disease was no longer dangerous.

"People talk about pandemic versus endemic," the WHO's emergencies director Michael Ryan told a virtual session of the World Economic Forum.

"Endemic malaria kills hundreds of thousands of people; endemic HIV; endemic violence in our inner cities. 

"Endemic in itself does not mean good -- endemic just means it's here forever," Ryan told the Davos Agenda roundtable on vaccine equity.

The rapidly-spreading Omicron variant of Covid-19 is much more contagious than previous strains but seems to cause less serious disease for vaccinated people.

That has triggered a debate on the virus passing from being a pandemic to becoming endemic -- with the implication that the danger will have passed.

"What we need to do is get to low levels of disease incidence with maximum vaccination of our populations, so nobody has to die," said Ryan.

"That's the end of the emergency, in my view. That's the end of the pandemic."

Ryan added that it was possible to end the waves of death and hospitalisations by the end of 2022 through vaccine-led public health measures.

But, he added: "We won't end the virus this year. We may never end the virus. Pandemic viruses end up becoming part of the ecosystem.

"What we can do is end is the public health emergency."

With the exception of the one-shot Janssen product, all the Covid-19 vaccines given emergency approval by the WHO require two injections.

Ryan raised the prospect of three to four doses at some point being considered the full course of vaccination for enduring protection against severe Covid disease.

"As knowledge develops, and as we see the way the immune system matures and responds to either re-exposure or to an extra dose of vaccine, we may end up in a future where the primary course of vaccination for a vulnerable person might be three or four doses," he said.

"They won't be called boosters. It will be seen that you need three to four doses to develop that long-lasting, robust immunity that protects you from hospitalisation and death over a prolonged period."

Agence France-Presse

Microsoft to buy US gaming giant Activision-Blizzard for $69 billion

Microsoft announced Tuesday a landmark $69 billion deal to purchase US gaming giant Activision Blizzard, grabbing the sex harassment scandal-hit firm as the tech colossus seeks to boost its power in video games.

Merging with troubled Activision will make Microsoft the third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony, it said, a major shift in the booming world of games.

"This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft's gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse," Microsoft said in a statement.

Activision, the California-based maker of "Candy Crush" has been hit by employee protests, departures, and a state lawsuit alleging it enabled toxic workplace conditions and sexual harassment against women. 

Over the past seven months the company has received about 700 reports of employee concerns over sexual assault or harassment or other misconduct, in some cases separate reports about the same incident, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Nearly 20 percent of Activision Blizzard's 9,500 employees have signed a petition calling for CEO Bobby Kotick to resign.

"Acquiring Activision will help jump start Microsoft's broader gaming endeavors and ultimately its move into the metaverse with gaming the first monetization piece of the metaverse in our opinion," Wedbush analysts said after the news broke.

- Troubled Activision -

"With Activision's stock under heavy pressure (CEO related issues/overhang) over the last few months, Microsoft viewed this as the window of opportunity to acquire a unique asset that can propel its consumer strategy forward," Wedbush added.

Microsoft has just marked 20 years of the "Halo" video game franchise that turned its Xbox console into a hit.

Microsoft launched a host of initiatives to mark two decades of both Halo and the Xbox, including a virtual museum exploring key moments in the console's history.

Xbox remains a key player in a video game industry now thought to be larger than the movie sector, with market research firm Mordor Intelligence valuing it at $173.7 billion in 2020.

Troubles, meanwhile, have stacked up for Activision over its sex harassment and discrimination scandal.

In July, California state regulators accused the company of condoning a culture of harassment, a toxic work environment, and inequality.

In September the Securities and Exchange Commission launched a probe into the company over "disclosures regarding employment matters and related issues."

And two months later the Journal reported that Kotick, accused of mishandling the harassment complaints, had signaled he would consider stepping down if he failed to quickly fix the company culture. He has led the company for more than three decades.

Late last year chief operating officer Daniel Alegre pledged a 50 percent increase in female and non-binary staff over the next five years so that they will account for more than a third of Activision's workers.

Agence France-Presse

'Nevermind' baby sues Nirvana again

The man depicted as a naked baby on Nirvana's 1991 album "Nevermind" has revived his lawsuit accusing the band of sexually exploiting him, after a US judge dismissed an earlier version of the case.

Spencer Elden, the plaintiff, maintained in an amended complaint filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles that the "lascivious nature of his image" amounted to "child pornography" that helped the band reap tens of millions of dollars at his expense.

Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic; Courtney Love, the widow of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain; several record labels, and photographer Kirk Weddle are among the 10 defendants. Elden is seeking at least $150,000 from each.

Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately respond on Thursday to requests for comment.

The "Nevermind" cover art depicted Elden, then four months old, swimming naked toward a dollar bill pierced with a fish hook, an image Elden has said caused him "lifelong damages."

Elden filed his amended complaint nine days after US District Judge Fernando Olguin dismissed an earlier version because Elden had not responded to the defendants' dismissal motion.

The latest complaint includes a declaration from art director Robert Fisher, describing a stock photo he used for a mockup for the "Nevermind" cover that depicted a different baby and did not show his penis.

Elden said the band decided to create its own photo to save money, with Cobain sardonically suggesting that the cover include a warning sticker saying: "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile."

Fisher was dismissed as a defendant last month.

Elden's lawsuit no longer accuses Nirvana of violating a 2003 federal law against child sex trafficking, after the defendants said that law could not be applied retroactively.

"Nevermind" features Nirvana's signature song "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and its worldwide sales exceed 30 million. Grohl now leads the band Foo Fighters. Cobain died in 1994.

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot

-reuters

Omicron ‘overreaction?’ Airline ticket sales see sharp drop, IATA says

Airline ticket sales have fallen sharply since the end of 2021, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said Wednesday, blaming governments for having "overreacted" to the omicron COVID variant by closing borders.

IATA, which groups more than 290 airlines, said international air travel had been slowly but steadily recovering from the mass shutdowns of 2020 and early 2021 before the fast-spreading omicron strain was discovered at the end of November.

Ticket sales in November were 60.5 percent below their pre-pandemic November 2019 level, marking an improvement on the 64.8 percent decline recorded a month earlier.

"Unfortunately, governments overreacted to the emergence of the omicron variant at the close of the month and resorted to the tried-and-failed methods of border closures, excessive testing of travelers and quarantine to slow the spread," IATA president Willie Walsh accused.

As a result, he said, the industry was bracing for "a more difficult first quarter than expected."

IATA's members account for 83 percent of global air traffic.

In October, the association forecast cumulative industry losses of $11.6 billion in 2022, down from an estimated $51.8 billion in 2021 and $137.7 billion in 2020.

IATA said it expected US airlines to turn profits again this year but that European carriers, which operate more long-haul flights and are therefore more exposed to border closures, would remain in the red.

Agence France-Presse

Citi to exit consumer banking in Mexico

NEW YORK, United States - Citi announced Tuesday it will exit its Mexican consumer banking business, the latest reorganization effort to steer the US financial heavyweight towards higher-return ventures.

The New York-based bank plans to cease operations in Mexico in consumer, small business and middle-market customers, but will maintain an institutional client business in the country to provide financial advisory and private banking services.

Chief Executive Jane Fraser said the move was consistent with a "strategy refresh" that included earlier moves to pare back consumer banking in other overseas markets.

"Citi is uniquely positioned to support cross-border capital markets activity and trade flows in and out of Mexico for our institutional clients and we will continue to make material investments in our institutional operations and market-leading hub there," Fraser said.

Citi announced plans in April 2021 to exit 13 international consumer banking markets where the bank said it lacked the scale to compete effectively.

The businesses Citi is shedding in Mexico -- it's last in Latin America -- accounted for $3.5 billion in revenues and $1.2 billion in pre-tax earnings through the first three quarters of 2021.

The bank said the timing of the move is unclear since it depends on regulatory approvals, but could involve a sale pf the business lines.

Agence France-Presse