From AI-funded public good to security flaws, smarter cars, and the next MacBook debate

Tesla’s stock skyrocketed (just like Roadster?) overnight

Can we talk about Tesla’s Roadster? Even though it was last Friday, after I had already summed up my tech week brief, I saw a zillion memes of flying (sorry, jumping) Teslas and cars stuck in traffic in the air and just couldn’t pass by. Memes are funny, but the new Roadster is already called “Tesla’s best engineering model and the fastest car.” Forecasts say that there will be around 2,000 Roadster deliveries, and it will be Tesla’s lowest-volume vehicle.

The timing of this presentation is the most interesting part. SpaceX has reported a 161% revenue increase year over year, and this car could predict a potential merger of Tesla and SpaceX. Read more on the news here.

Revolut goes down worldwide

Millions of Revolut users had a frustrating morning on October 20 when a major outage disrupted the digital bank’s services. Users couldn’t log in, transfer money, withdraw cash, or pay with their cards. The issue was Google Cloud’s data center power outage, affecting businesses and public services. Every time we experience a similar issue, we prove how much of our daily lives depend on cloud providers.

Revolut reassured customers that their money and data remained safe and later confirmed that services had been restored.

Just like millions of customers, my banking experience lives in different apps, but what happens when they go down? Follow the news on Euronews.

AI is trying to save dying dating apps

Bumble and similar swipe apps are probably in the past because users are tired of useless swiping in the hope of finding a match. On the other hand, we see the rise of chatbots and AI companions that provide emotional support and even compete with dating apps. AI companions like Replika and Character.AI offer someone always available and never leaving you on read. These solutions cannot replace human interaction, but at times of loneliness, they can provide support.

So if AI has such great potential in building relationships, maybe Bumble and other apps could use it to offer better matches and help practice conversations? The long-term perspective on integrating AI is about lowering the churn rate, because when dating apps are good enough to help you find your true love, you would probably delete the app and forget. Get the full story here.

Anthropic will put 5% of its shares into the Public Benefit Fund

The CEO of Anthropic announced that the company would commit 5% of its shares to a new Public Benefit Fund, potentially worth tens of billions of dollars. The fund could support nonprofits, distribute money directly to specific groups, and help workers facing disruption from AI. As statistics show, Anthropic’s valuation steadily grows, meaning the stake will increase too. The company says an additional 2% could be added for every 50% increase in the company’s value.

The announcements come as AI companies prepare for massive IPOs while warning that their technology could have “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity,” disrupt jobs, and reshape the economy. Is this 5% shared to shut our eyes and make us numb to the emerging danger? Check the article to find out more about the news and what Elon Musk has announced.

Google’s Gemini is now in our cars

Artificial intelligence is part of our lives, and from now on, we have a chance to get personal intelligence while driving. Google is bringing Gemini’s Personal Intelligence to Android Auto, making a car assistant a little less robotic and a lot more personal. Instead of simply following commands, the car assistant now offers tailored help using information from connected Google apps. Ask for a restaurant recommendation, and it could suggest a place based on your preferences.

The idea is to make driving more convenient while keeping your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. But the more useful your assistant becomes, the more personal information it needs access to.

Your car already knows where you’re going. Now your AI wants to know why. See the full story here.

AI found a PHP security flaw: websites are going dark

The morning of 22 October started with government agencies shutting down their websites after critical security vulnerabilities were found in websites built on PHP. The flaws could allow attackers to execute malicious code remotely, potentially compromising servers and sensitive data. Security researchers used AI to identify the vulnerabilities, and experts warned that hackers could also use AI to exploit them.

PHP developers are now working on security fixes, but 70% of the world’s websites are now being updated, so they may work with disruptions.

This time, AI was on the good side, but is it permanent? Read more about the news here.

The new Mercury 3 AI model claims to outperform GPT-6 Luna and Claude Haiku 5.5

Inception, a California-based AI product company, made bold announcements that its new model runs eight times faster than its popular rivals, generating 1000 tokens per second. Its secret is a different approach called diffusion: instead of generating text one token at a time, Mercury 3 predicts and refines multiple tokens in parallel. It also supports a one-million-token context window, making it best for coding, real-time translation, and AI agents that need to respond quickly.

These numbers are, of course, impressive, but the thing is that speed and quality figures come from Inception’s own benchmarks, and we are still waiting for results from independent testing. More details here.

Nvidia presented its cute tiny robots

Forget humanoid robots for a moment. MicroDucks, presented on Nvidia’s GTC Berlin stage, demonstrate how small robots can coordinate their movements and work together. Each robot follows simple rules and responds to its surroundings, allowing the group to perform tasks as a coordinated system.

Jensen Huang, who led the presentation, gave the ducks a few commands that looked really cute, making the audience laugh and cheer them. These robots could be useful for proving physical AI concepts and prototyping, where inexpensive robots replace large machines. Catch the full story here.

Microsoft presented new security features to protect against rogue AI agents

Increasing warnings about the AI threat forced companies to act, and Microsoft reacted with Guardian Agents, a new feature in Project Perception that monitors AI agents. This new system is meant to address the hacking models of Anthropic and OpenAI. While the threat is mostly outside, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella commented that businesses tend to trust advanced AI models blindly, and the threat can be equally real from inside. The concern is that agents can access files, send emails, run code, and interact with company systems, sometimes making harmful decisions even without a malicious attacker.

We’ve gone from asking AI to write emails to worrying it might send the wrong ones to everyone in the company. And this is not the worst scenario. More about the news on TechCrunch.

Apple’s new MacBook with touchscreen

The new product announcement, scheduled for October 28, has some speculation, and one rumor is the most exciting. Analysts predict we will have a touchscreen on a MacBook, a feature that has kept such interaction away from laptops, insisting that laptops are better suited to keyboards and trackpads.

MacBook sales account for only 10% of Apple’s revenue, but maybe, just maybe, a new touchscreen feature will change the picture. Next week we will talk about this event. For now, read the news for more information.

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Apple finally announced its new HomeView that could beat Alexa and Google

After the HomePod was released in 2018 and didn’t impress customers as much as predicted, this intelligent voice assistant, priced at $299, deserves attention. It is a sleek 7-inch square device with a screen and camera controlled by Siri AI. Seamlessly integrated into the Apple ecosystem, the HomeView provides the familiar smooth experience that all Apple users expect. HomeView automatically recognizes family members and displays the personalized home screen of applications, and this is just part of the “wow” experience users will get.

The new HomeView will be available in four colors: silver, starlight (my favorite one), rose pink, and space gray. Apple also offers a separate wall-mounted model in space gray and silver. See more about the HomeView features on Apple.

Amazon already has over 1 million robot workers. And how many human employees do they have?

Being the leading company operating so many robots, Amazon already raises concerns about the future for its human employees. While the company claims that robots have taken the workload to ease the burden on the human workforce, labor advocacy groups see another picture.

To support its 200 million Prime subscribers, Amazon needs thousands of human employees to assemble and ship orders. With robots, the company can maximize speed with minimum costs. And behind the curtain, we see thousands of injured employees working with robots. The full story is here.

Nicolas Cage says no to AI and may be done with Amazon

The Oscar-winning actor clearly expressed his stance about artificial intelligence by refusing to sign an AI waiver for Amazon’s now-canceled Spider-Noir series. The waiver would have allowed the studio to use his AI copy in connection with the show. Cage made his position clear: Amazon is investing in AI, including a reported $50 billion investment in OpenAI, but he won’t let the technology replace his work without permission.

Cage is now more interested in young and prospective filmmakers who create their work from scratch, by hand. Apparently, for Cage, some things should remain human-made.

Read more about the news here.

Anthropic has issued another AI warning

Well, the week would be boring if there were no other case and no other warning. According to Anthropic, small AI models may soon copy themselves onto internet-connected devices and spread without human help. Medium-sized models with 30 billion parameters could perform tasks for self-replication but couldn’t finish them (YET). The dangerous part about these replicants is that they cannot be shut down since there is no centralized point to shut them off. The security risks of these AI systems are automated cyberattacks, as if traditional cyberattacks were not so concerning.

The company says this capability could emerge by the end of 2026. How exciting! Read more at Reuters.

Meta’s new Muse can sext with you, and this is not what we expected

WIRED tested Meta’s Muse AI agent and found it could engage in explicit sexual conversations, including detailed roleplay. That’s fine for adults, but we have questions about where the company draws the line between acceptable AI behavior and risky oversharing. The conversation shared goes beyond an awkward pillow talk with a chatbot. And what if the account is hacked? Such conversations can become weapons for blackmail or extortion. Meanwhile, other AI agents tested by WIRED refused similar requests.

Your AI assistant can help organize your life. Just make sure it doesn’t turn your private life into a security problem. Read the full story on WIRED.

Google’s new Fitbit Edge is a mix of a fitness band and a smartwatch

This week, Google announced the Fitbit Edge, its latest wearable that promises to give you the best of both worlds at $179.99. The new gadget has the slim design of the no-screen Fitbit Air and an OLED for notifications. It tracks more than 50 exercise modes, automatically recognizes up to 100 activities, and promises up to seven days of battery life.

The Edge is powered by Google’s Health Coach, which builds personalized workout plans using your health and fitness data. The catch? You’ll need a Google Health Premium subscription for the AI coaching features. Read more at TechCrunch.

Trump is renaming artificial intelligence to Super Intelligence, and Silicon Valley is responding

President Donald Trump wants everyone to stop calling artificial intelligence “AI” and start calling it “super intelligence.” Immediately after the announcement, Silicon Valley reacted to the news. Elon Musk renamed SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff announced AIForce would become SIForce, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang included “super intelligence research” in a $1 billion scientific investment commitment. Will this update make AI (sorry, SI) safer and more controllable, or is this just an exercise in political loyalty? See the full story here.

The clones of Adobe, Microsoft Word, Excel, and many other tools may be available for free

Finally, we’ve got some good news. Brandon Thomas from ArtCraft is working on creating free alternatives to some of the biggest names in subscription software using Anthropic’s Claude. After creating ArtCraft, a copy of Adobe tools, he has unveiled WordCraft, GridCraft, and DeckCraft tools, alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

There is one problem. These projects are still in their early stage, have compatibility issues, and aren’t full replacements for the originals. Catch the full story here.

TikTok’s CEO talks about AI science breakthroughs

Shou Zi Chew spoke about AI advancements at DBS Bank’s Asia Future Forward Conference in Singapore. He argued that we’re overestimating AI’s short-term impact and underestimating what it could do in the long run. But Chew also warned about the cybersecurity risks that are “big and quite real.” Users give AI agents wide permissions without thinking twice about the consequences. These warnings are already the new norm for us, aren’t they?

Find out more here.

YouTube will start labeling AI-generated music

Just like Instagram has started labeling AI content and AI profiles, YouTube has rolled out a new feature as a response to users’ complaints about AI tracks flooding the platform. YouTube will have several labels for content: Fully Gen AI, Partly Gen AI, or No Gen AI. Partly Gen AI will mean that artists have used AI components together with their own live elements. Spotify and Apple Music have also promised to start labeling AI music. Deezer not only detects and labels AI-generated music, but it also excludes it from playlists and recommendations. The music industry supported this initiative as a way to protect its rights. Today, the question is not “Who sings this?” but “Did anyone actually sing this?” More on TechCrunch.

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September ends with AI drama, more warnings, and new smart gadgets

Trump will discuss some AI stuff with Amodei around the dinner table

The dinner meeting, already confirmed, will focus on the main concern we have had over the past month, but Trump made it clear that he does not support new regulations. “We’re about maybe a year and a half up on China,” Trump told Fox News. “We’re leading, and we’re building tremendous, trillions of dollars’ worth of places. And why should we give that up?”

According to Trump, the incidents of rogue AI agents are not a reason to slow down progress. “I don’t worry about it.”

Bill Gates also commented on the situation, saying that law enforcement should be involved. “I hope ⁠that, given my life’s work in the field, my saying how unique and different this is and how concerned I am will add to what he’s hearing from other people,” Gates said. Can we hope that, after all, Trump will accept the reality and be ready to discuss strategies?

Read more about the news on Reuters.

More news about OpenAI’s agents going rogue again, this time targeting US government websites

Just a few days after the Australian government revealed that an OpenAI agent had accessed its health department portal, a new investigation found OpenAI agents attempting to access US government systems, including the Commerce Department, the SEC, and the Education Department. OpenAI commented that the agents accessed public Census Bureau data using login credentials found online and shared public SEC data. They also tried to access the Education Department’s civil rights website but failed. No private government data has been accessed.

While these were routine research tasks, the bigger concern is that these agents bypassed anti-bot controls, flooded websites with requests, and created fake accounts when searching for information.

OpenAI has called these incidents “misaligned behavior.” I wonder when someone will be held responsible for this misaligned behavior. More on CNN.

PNOĒ is taking breathing to a new level with a smart mask, but with a little Bane vibe

A Massachusetts-based PNOĒ startup has announced its new PNOĒ 2.0 device, a portable metabolic testing mask to measure oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide in your breath while training and at rest. In eight minutes, it can provide data on 23 biomarkers, including VO₂ max, resting metabolic rate, and how efficiently your body switches between burning fat and carbohydrates. Based on this data, PNOĒ then helps you build a personalized workout and diet plan.

PNOĒ will not be available as a retail product (yet). Instead, the company partners with the NBA, Four Seasons hotels, and Equinox through a subscription-based model, where customers can try the mask. As a big fan of a healthy lifestyle, I would really love to try this gadget someday and find out more about my body. Read more here.

Truecaller wants to protect you from scams before you even answer the phone

A popular caller ID tool has launched its new Scam Checker web and Android service to check whether a phone number, message, or link has been reported as fraudulent.

The timing is ideal, as scams with voice cloning and deepfakes are coming as phone calls, messages, links, voice, and video. The tool is now available in India and already contains around 20,000 scam reports on ScamFeed, with 1,300 new reports added every week. In the near future, the company will be available in Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Check out TechCrunch’s overview of Truecaller.

OpenAI’s agents targeted a UN website more than 16,000 times

This week shouldn’t have had so much news about the rogue AI agents, but here we go again. OpenAI disclosed that between April and June, its agents repeatedly scanned a UN Trade and Development Statistics website and tried to retrieve data. The models had a task to find publicly available information, but they started behaving aggressively when they couldn’t access it. Instead of stopping, they kept changing their approach and found ways around restrictions, including disguising requests and using other online services to reach the data. OpenAI said they are investigating the case, but again, no one takes responsibility.

No confidential information was compromised, and the UN website was not disrupted, but this behavior is yet another case of how autonomous AI agents can be when they encounter a barrier. More details here.

Anthropic announced its new Sonnet 5.5 model

Last week, the company released its Opus 5.5 model, which already surpassed Fable. Sonnet 5.5 will be ideal for everyday tasks, running 30% faster and costing 30% less. Of course, in the Claude family, Sonnet is less powerful than Opus, but it can be more useful for research and even coding. The new model has stricter cybersecurity safeguards like Opus, and it is the first model designed with the same level of safeguards as the most capable models.

Sonnet 5.5 requires fewer tokens for input and output than Sonnet 5, with a balance of cost and speed against overall quality. The model is already available on all platforms. Check out all the updates from Anthropic’s official website.

Nothing’s new headphones are presented by the ambassador, BTS star V

The K-pop superstar has joined Nothing as its global brand ambassador, starting the partnership with the company’s new Headphone (1) Pro. This collaboration is meant to highlight the “experimentation and versatility of authentic expression,” and V is the best to present it with his character and charisma.

The $399 headphones are Nothing’s first Pro audio product and feature three drivers, adaptive noise cancellation with 10 microphones, spatial audio, and up to 68 hours of battery life.

The collaboration fits Nothing’s growing focus on music and creative culture. Earlier this year, Charli XCX joined the company as a global ambassador and shareholder. Now V is joining the campaign, bringing his fanbase into Nothing’s world. The headphones have officially launched on September 29. After the new Beats and AirPods Max, will Nothing be able to take its piece of the pie? Find out more here.

Texas residents are not happy about Amazon delivery drones

The drone delivery service is quite convenient for customers but, apparently, not for residents of Richardson, Texas. People living near the facility complain of constant noise. One resident reported 52 drones flying over her house in a day.

As Amazon plans to expand its Prime Air service across the US, this issue can quickly escalate. Just imagine: you are ordering another not-so-useful item that will cause another headache to someone while being delivered to you. Check out the source of the story.

Bill Gates speaks out about the danger of unchecked AI: “It could cause a billion deaths.”

In an interview with NBC, Bill Gates made one of the strongest warnings about the risks of AI, saying it is “powerful enough” to cause a billion deaths if used by people with bad intentions.

While not calling to completely stop AI development, he still noted that it is critical to have law enforcement and safeguards. “It’s not enough to have a kill switch,” he said.

Let’s recall that Gates and Microsoft have also been at the center of a scandal after Microsoft employees launched a campaign calling on the company to cut ties with the Israeli military. The campaign followed reports that the Israeli military used Microsoft Azure to store and process Palestinian communications and support military operations in Gaza. Here is the complete article on The Guardian.

Isn’t it hypocritical that a man heavily investing in AI warns about disasters AI may cause?

Nvidia’s new platform to put AI agents on a leash

After multiple reports about AI agents accessing systems they were never supposed to reach, Nvidia has released its Open Agent Safety Platform to keep autonomous AI agents within boundaries.

One part, called OpenShell, runs on CPUs and controls what an agent can access and do. Another part is Sentry, which monitors agents at the network level. Nvidia, which has acquired Hugging Face, says the platform could have prevented OpenAI’s July incident involving Hugging Face.

Nvidia, like any other CEO having safety concerns over AI development, is at the center of AI development, which is paradoxical. If they think they are losing control over AI, maybe it’s time to act and not just make announcements? Catch the full story here.

Today I have icing on the cake. Read here the possible scenarios of how AI could kill us. Happy reading!

AI safety, smarter gadgets, and another week of surprises

The EU demands that data centers disclose energy and water consumption

On Monday, the European Commission proposed a law requiring data centers in Europe to disclose their consumption and how efficiently they use the resources.

The EU is planning to triple the number of data centers over the next few years to support AI development. Growing concerns about resource consumption need more regulations; otherwise, the region will face depleting water resources, energy grids, and CO2 emissions. Data centers should also disclose the water stress level in the local area and offer plans to reuse the waste heat. These requirements will be mandatory minimum standards for data centers. Get the full story here.

Pope Leo calls for AI that serves humanity, not divides it

We have heard warnings from ex-employees, AI CEOs, and leaders, and now Pope Leo has expressed his concerns about the latest developments in artificial intelligence and how it fosters divisions in society. At the conference hosted at Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University, he called for AI systems that “serve the dignity of every person and strengthen the bonds that unite the human family.” The Pope also mentioned misinformation that AI systems spread and fuel conflicts.

Are we already at the stage where AI raises more concerns than breakthroughs? Read more about the conference in The Economic Times.

Googlebook, designed for Gemini Intelligence, is now available for pre-order

Google is making another move to build its own ecosystem, this time around laptops that will be synced with Android phones and Gemini. The new Googlebook is not one laptop but a category of devices from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, starting at $899.

The main idea is simple: instead of using AI as a separate app, Google wants Gemini built into the way you use your laptop. Features like Magic Pointer can understand what is on your screen and help you take action, while Rambler turns messy voice notes into organized text. Googlebook also connects to Android phones and gives access to phone files, apps, and notifications.

It looks like Google is trying to build the Android-Gemini version of the ecosystem that Apple has spent years perfecting. Check out more about the news and don’t miss the release date.

Apple users are not happy with persistent ads

After the release of iOS 27, Apple has started showing promotional messages for its own services and products across iOS, and users are ”slightly furious.” These are not traditional third-party ads, but Apple is repeatedly pushing its own services inside an operating system people already paid for.

The only way to get rid of these ads is either to buy the service offered or let the notification badge in the settings be an eyesore for months until it expires. Users have taken their complaints to social media, questioning how much advertising they are willing to tolerate from a company that has built its brand around a premium, controlled user experience. See the full story here.

Anthropic just made its top AI model cheaper and faster

Anthropic released its Opus 5.5 model on Tuesday, setting a new benchmark in coding and knowledge work performance. So far, Opus is the most capable model, even outpacing Fable, which was larger and more expensive. For Opus, users will pay $20 per million output tokens and $4 per million input tokens.

The timing of the release is more interesting: the new model was announced after Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei called for the AI industry to slow down over safety concerns. Isn’t it strange that after his statement, they have released a more powerful and affordable model? Apparently, slowing down doesn’t mean stopping. Read the full article on TechCrunch.

New Beats headphones you can actually customize

Apple has been promising to release a lighter version of AirPods Max for sports, but it never happened. On the other hand, Beats, owned by Apple, has released its new 360 headphones designed for people who want one pair of headphones to work across different situations, especially during workouts.

Besides noise cancellation and top-tier sound, the new gadget has a modular design that lets you swap parts of the headphones, including different ear cushions and bands. Each pair has a Knit Performance Kit in four colors that can be switched whenever the mood wants more color.

Beats products have always been focused on stability for sports. New models have already attracted the attention of major sports figures who have always been actively using Beats models and sharing their feedback. Read the full product review on CNET.

AI CEOs are taking their warnings to the UN Security Council

Sam Altman and Dario Amodei will be briefing the UN Security Council on AI safety and the risks of frontier AI for international security. This meeting follows their call on slowing down AI development.

Other participants of the meeting are Hugging Face CEO and Yoshua Bengio, chairman of the Independent International Scientific Panel of the United Nations on AI. What makes this particularly striking is that AI is now being treated as an issue of international security. However, President Donald Trump continues to call the warnings a scam and a hoax and encourages further development of advanced models. Read news on CNBC.

Apple’s new fitness tracker to compete with Whoop

The rumors about new screenless health and fitness trackers are getting louder, which means Apple is likely working on a prototype. Though there is no official announcement from the company, there are speculations that if the project is approved, the gadget will debut in 2028. If and when released, it is going to be a sensor-equipped bracelet with a completely different user experience focused entirely on health tracking. Most features have been borrowed from Whoop and Oura (some already included in the present Health and Fitness apps). As an active user of Apple’s Health and Fitness apps, I find this news exciting, but how am I supposed to see real-time progress without staring at my watch? Read the full story on Bloomberg.

YouTube is turning your doomscrolling into a TV series

YouTube has just introduced its new Shorts Series feature that lets creators organize their short videos into TV-style seasons and episodes. With the rising popularity of microdrama apps, YouTube can now turn Shorts into organized episodes that users can follow from one episode to the next, with custom thumbnails and dedicated playback. The feature is rolling out to creators in the YouTube Partner Program across mobile, web, and connected TVs, making YouTube a serious competitor to microdrama apps ReelShort, DramaBox, and others.

As if we haven’t been wasting hours scrolling shorts, now we have this super-handy feature. Thank you, YouTube; I’d probably set a screen time limit on the app. More about the new feature here.

OpenAI’s AI agent hacked an Australian government website, and the government is not happy

On Wednesday, Redditors were discussing another scandal around AI agents after one gained unauthorized access to an Australian health department portal in July. No personal information was accessed, but the OpenAI agent apparently went beyond what it was supposed to do.

The Australian government was also unhappy that OpenAI waited until September 10 to report the incident. As NPR reported, Prime Minister Albanese spoke with Sam Altman and expressed his disappointment about the whole incident, especially the way the government was informed about the breach. The portal has since been closed, and the data has been moved to more secure systems.

The discussions around the news on Reddit raised questions that probably deserve an answer, like “Why is no one responsible for this?” And by no one, we mean people who actually built the system. And when or if things get worse tomorrow, will they still tell us that it wasn’t the people behind the system, but the system itself?

CEOs are warning about AI, governments are racing to control it, data centers are getting more expensive, and the plot keeps getting crazier every week.

Trump is not afraid of AI and won’t disrupt its development

After calls from AI scientists and growing warnings about the technology’s risks, China’s leader Xi Jinping proposed a global AI governance pact and called for more international cooperation and open-source AI.

On the other side of the planet, Trump has made it clear that the US is not slowing down because, in his words, whoever wins AI wins.

And China is no longer a distant competitor. Its AI companies are catching up with their American rivals while Beijing is pushing to build a stronger domestic AI ecosystem and reduce its dependence on US technology.

So while scientists are asking how to control AI, the US and China are asking a different question: who will control AI? More on CNN

Sam Altman on slowing down the AI industry not to lose control

Joining Dario Amodei and Elon Musk, Sam Altman also spoke about the safety concerns surrounding frontier AI. This is probably the first time competitors have united around the topic, and the issue is nothing but humanity’s safety. He described two possible development scenarios (both are not so positive). Amodei, in turn, offered a three-step plan to slow down the pace without sacrificing the US commercial advantage. His main point was to implement common safety standards and limit unchecked AI progress. Read the full overview by The Guardian.

P.S. Everyone is commenting on this news, but one comment captured attention. Timnit Gebru, co-founder of Black in AI, commented about companies and CEOs ‘stoking fears’ to shift attention from AI’s actual harms, like autonomous weapons. True or not, we are living in an era where technology is changing faster than we can predict its consequences.

AI stocks drop after industry leaders’ announcement

News doesn’t come and go in isolation. They have a huge impact. That’s what happened when the AI industry’s CEOs’ announcement about slowing down the industry caused stocks to drop worldwide. The confidence in the consistent development and growth of the industry was significantly shaken.

Chip stocks, which have been among the biggest winners of the AI boom, were also affected. The Philadelphia semiconductor index fell 5.2%, while Nvidia dropped 3%, AMD 4.5%, and Micron 5.4%. European and Asian chipmakers also fell. The concern is simple: if AI development slows, companies may also slow their huge spending on the chips and infrastructure needed to train and run these models. Read more about the news here.

A new amphibian gut bacterium destroys cancer cells

This week, Reddit had some exciting discussions about biotechnology, but one got special attention. The gut bacterium from tree frogs successfully treated cancerous tumors in rats, outperforming other existing technologies in cancer treatment.

Discovered by Japanese researchers who worked on nine bacterial strains from the intestines, Ewingella americana showed the highest cytotoxic activity and tumor-targeting characteristics. The bacteria have a double action: they kill cancer cells and activate the immune system, concentrating the body’s defenses where they are needed.

If or when this biotechnology is tested and approved for humans, it may become the first effective way to beat cancer. Read the full article here.

The new Volkswagen electric car promises to be the best in the market

Its Mission Efficiency concept, with futuristic design, is the most aerodynamic and can drive 1,278 km on a single charge. When tested, the mission efficiency used 7.51 kHw per 100 km with the climate control off. These numbers were recorded and certified by Germany’s Record Institute.

The hardware is quite ordinary: a 54.9 kWh battery, 99 kW from the motor, and the MEB+ platform. But the secret of its performance is in the design. Volkswagen built the Mission Efficiency around aerodynamics, giving it an extremely low 0,158 drag coefficient. The body is low and long, letting air flow around the car with minimal resistance. The wheels have also got new patented rim deflectors for better airflow.

But there is one big BUT. The car is too long to qualify for the EU’s proposed incentives for small EVs. So Volkswagen may have built one of its most efficient EVs yet, but Brussels basically says, “Nice try.” More on the news.

Another massive layoff at Oracle

The world’s largest database management company has shrunk its workforce by 13%; it has 22,000 employees in twelve months. To compare, Amazon cut 57,000 roles in 4 years, or 16% of the workforce. So far, Oracle wins in terms of layoff scale.

Employees received an email with a notice that “today was their last working day.” This round of layoffs followed Oracle’s announcement that it was setting aside $700 million for restructuring. Spending $55.7 billion on data centers and raising more debt to fund the rest, the layoffs will bring them $10 billion in annual payroll savings, which is meaningful but still cannot cover the debt. Read the article for more details.

Snap really wants us to believe that $2,200 glasses are the future

After releasing its Specs AR glasses, which turned out to be a failure, Snap is making another big push, arguing that the $2,195 price makes sense because these are not just smart glasses but a new kind of computer.

To make the case stronger, Snap is partnering with AWS, Nvidia, and Salesforce to bring Spec to the enterprise market. The scenarios where Spec will be used are still vague. The glasses can provide information hands-free, recognize what workers are looking at, and connect them to AI assistants. I wonder if anyone has asked workers whether they need those glasses or not? Snap is basically betting that if consumers don’t want $2,200 glasses, businesses might. Catch the full story.

Hackers stole a Flock camera and discovered just how much it can see

A group of hackers physically removed a Flock Safety surveillance camera in Georgia and extracted its software and stored data, having a rare look inside one of the US’s biggest automated surveillance systems (which, by the way, uses on-device encryption). Hackers copied around 1.6 million images of 50,000 vehicles in just 21 days. The investigation of this material showed that Flock cameras can detect not only license plates but also people, vehicles, bumper stickers, and bicycles.

These hackers were not the first to try to disrupt Flock cameras. In many towns, people are removing and damaging cameras, which has resulted in multiple arrests. Flock says its cameras are designed to help law enforcement solve crimes, but the findings raise fresh questions about how much movement data is being collected and who can access it.

Well, compared with Chinese Chongqing’s 2,6 million surveillance cameras, Flock looks almost innocent. Almost. See the full story here.

America’s AI obsession is about to get very expensive

The AI boom is creating such huge demand for electricity that, by 2035, US data centers could consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined. Data centers could consume around 18 billion cubic feet per day. Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google have already announced their plans to build natural gas power plants.

Why natural gas? The reason is simple: AI data centers need power, and natural gas plants can be built and connected faster than many other energy sources.

What about the climate and economics? All that extra gas means more emissions, higher pressure on fuel supplies, and higher energy costs. So while the US keeps investing in AI, the machines running it may send the country back toward fossil fuels. See the full story on TechCrunch.

Samsung has finally rolled out One UI 9 for Galaxy S26

After starting beta versions in May and releasing 7 versions, the official public version is available for the S26 series.

With the new design, users have a My FanCam feature that automatically tracks and captures a person in a video, turning dynamic moments into a social-ready video. The latest Galaxy experience will bring more customizable quick panels, a new Tape feature in Notes, an interpreter with a new Thread View to follow translated conversations, and more. Find out more on Samsung Newsroom.

From TVs that are watching us and AI that can dance and combat

An LG OLED smart TV captures audio from our phone’s microphone for targeted ads

On Monday, Gamers Nexus’ investigation shared its results about LG smart TVs sweeping local networks, mapping unrelated hardware (smartphones’ audio and when the screen is off), and gathering IP addresses and names of neighboring Wi-Fi networks. The data is then fed into LG Ad Solutions to display products we “need” to buy right now. LG didn’t comment on this, but the Gamers Nexus team recommends disconnecting the LG TV from the internet and using external streaming devices instead. More about the investigation here.

Homes are becoming smarter, and people are becoming lazier: New Kata Mini to control your smart home

SwitchBot presented its Kata Friends Noa and Niko companions last year, whose main function was to be cute. It talks, displays emotions, moves around, and learns from the owner’s behavior, so it may know when you are in a good mood or in a bad mood.

This year, these AI pets got their younger Mini version that looks like a keychain plushie but can control SwitchBot smart home products. It can turn lights on and off, open and close the shades, and that’s it. If you feel you need a companion to do that stuff, SwitchBot has a solution. Check out the video.

Existential risk to humanity: UN rights are calling for action

On Monday, UN rights chief Volker Turk discussed AI, warning that it is a real threat to humanity and calling on AI companies to give “cast-iron” guarantees for more secure AI “before it’s too late.”

While not mentioning directly what threats he is referring to, in his speech, he highlighted the “dangerous agent-training behaviors.” According to Turk, countries and companies developing AI should agree on “red lines” that AI must not cross. More about the speech on Reuters.

On top of this news, we had a new thread on X. The ex AI researcher at OpenAI, Jacob Coxon, who has just resigned from Anthropic, warned everyone that AI could kill all humans in the next decade.

This is the fourth warning about AI risks in three weeks. I think everyone remembers Skynet, or am I being too dramatic?

IFA 2026, the world’s largest tech event, wrapped up this week, and there were some cool things to discuss

Over 1900 brands made product announcements and demos, from innovative smart home gear to gadgets. The highlight of the event was AI in appliances, robots, computers, and gadgets.

From the most iconic products captured were Oukitel’s solar-charged laptop, 10 brand-new products from Dyson, BleeqUp’s UV-protective AI sports glasses with a three-level tilt camera, Ucloudlink’s Petpogo PetPhone, Miele’s AI-powered dishwasher, and many other crazy things. Check out more on the CNET overview.

Google is spending $15 billion to buy nuclear power from Finland

Alphabet’s Google is planning to invest €13 billion in AI infrastructure, which will become its first nuclear power contract outside the US. And this is so far the biggest deal in Europe. The 22-year purchase agreement includes 50% of the energy output from one of the Finnish nuclear plants.

This agreement grants Google access to large amounts of low-carbon energy for its data centers. This investment and the upcoming infrastructure development will support 7.000 jobs in Finland. Read more about the news here.

Apple event 2026: new devices and new iOS 27

This week’s most anticipated news was the Apple event where the new CEO, John Ternus, presented the new iPhone 18, AirPods 5, Apple Watch Series 12, and, icing on the cake, the iPhone Duo, a new foldable device. The price of the iPhone 18 Pro Max will be $100 higher than past years’ models (thanks to a global increase in RAM prices), and the foldable Duo starts at $1,999.

During the 80-minute event, John Ternus presented the new features of iOS 27 and Apple Intelligence and the expected changes in the new version.

By the way, during the event, Apple’s stock price went down. Surprise, surprise! Check the CNBC overview.

2026 as the year of foldable: New devices from Xiaomi and Huawei in line with Apple Duo

Can we already note that all brands already have their flagship foldables: Samsung, Motorola, Xiaomi, Huawei, Apple? These solutions are crazy. I can’t say much about how practical they are, but Huawei’s new Mate XT2 series, which doesn’t simply fold; it folds out twice, turning into a tablet, is huge. The price for the top version of the smartphone/tablet is $3,725, promising greater computing power for this not-so-affordable price.

As for Xiaomi, they announced their new 18 Fold, a passport-sized device that is lighter and slimmer than Apple’s. The top version price is $2,100. Read the full article on NBC News.

Chinese robots don’t dance anymore; they lead urban warfare, or they will in the future

Humanoids, robot dogs, and unmanned vehicles are continuously tested in different settings and scenarios to see the rules of engagement, the weapons they use, and how they handle combat situations. China’s booming robotics industry is giving the military plenty of technology to experiment with, although the robots still have some serious limits, including battery life and reliability. Apparently, robot soldiers are no longer just science fiction.

Read more about the news here.

Major data breach and 150 million driver’s licenses stolen

One of the biggest ID verification services, IDScan, reported a data breach that caused 150 million driver’s license numbers to be stolen. The information includes names, license numbers, passport or ID numbers, and photos. The dark web already gives access to this information.

The Pentagon announced that they were aware of the suspected breach and that the FBI is already investigating the case. In turn, IDScan notified affected users about the breach but didn’t comment on the incident. More on TechCrunch.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company just raised $3 billion to dig even more tunnels

The tunneling startup has raised $3 billion in a Series D round, pushing its valuation to $23 billion. The round was led by investors from the United Arab Emirates, which is already working with the company on the Dubai Loop project. The new funding will help The Boring Company expand its underground transportation projects in Dubai, Las Vegas, and Nashville, while growing its engineering and operations teams. The main philosophy and goal of the company is to move people underground to solve the world’s traffic problems. Apparently, when traffic gets bad enough, the only way forward is down. Here is an overview of the news.

Good News, Bad News, and Everything In Between

LG smart homes got a new AI chatbot with a not-very-memorable name

ThinQ Claw, the name you won’t remember from the first try, is a new text-chat AI agent for coordinating smart home devices.

Presented first at IFA 2026, the new agent will help analyze the home environment and appliance usage, check schedules, recommend actions, and coordinate devices. The major value of the new agent is understanding user requests and the context behind them instead of following every instruction as an isolated command. Are we steadily moving to the homes we have seen in sci-fi movies? Learn more about ThinQ Claw on the LG official website.

New wearable device to monitor blood sugar and ketones

One of the latest Reddit discussions was around the new FDA-approved Libre Duo 10 Day wearable device for people with diabetes (and not only for them). While we have many blood sugar monitoring devices, this is the first sensor to continuously track ketones.

Recent studies show that 55% of hospital admissions with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) are caused by high levels of ketones. A small device sticks to the skin, monitors, and sends data to an app and alerts when the ketones reach concerning levels. More about the news here.

AI is coming for the world’s financial system, and not in a good way

On Monday, Andrew Bailey, the chair of the Financial Stability Board, sent a letter to finance ministers and central bank governors of G20 countries, warning about cyberattacks and noting that “frontier AI models don’t respect national borders.” Recent developments in AI and regulatory gaps across many jurisdictions cannot go without consequences. These concerns are no longer theoretical. OpenAI has reported experimental models escaping a test environment and accessing another company’s systems, while Anthropic is testing AI under deliberately permissive conditions. The more autonomy we give these systems without clear safeguards, the closer we may get to a point where we can no longer fully control them.

Andrew Bailey is calling on everyone to strengthen vulnerability management and prepare for severe scenarios.

Google is limiting memory for Android apps

Starting February 2027, Google will implement new memory limits, and apps that don’t meet the limits will be slowed down or terminated. The reason for this update is the global RAM shortage. The requirements are already published on the Android Developers Blog. Here is what the new regulations look like in practice. On a smartphone with 8GB of RAM, one can use no more than 2.25GB of memory in the foreground.

Is this another change caused by AI? Absolutely! AI data centers are killing the affordable smartphone market because the memory used for gadgets is now used for data centers. Less RAM, higher prices, slow performance, what’s next? More about the not-so-good news here.

The Pentagon is launching its private AI agent

To support its 3 million military and civilian personnel in using generative AI tools for their “warfighter needs.” Custom versions of ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government will be used on the GenAI.mil portal. This secure model will process sensitive government data without collecting, storing, or sharing data. The portal has already onboarded 1.7 million users, reporting a positive impact on accelerating work. The tool will focus on document-heavy routine work, administrative tasks, planning, and responding to chat requests. To develop the infrastructure and boost capabilities, the Pentagon is making deals with other companies, including Amazon Web Services, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Reflection AI. Read the TechCrunch overview of the news.

Instagram will limit AI profiles

This Monday, Instagram announced that it will rename AI creators to AI-generated profiles to help users easily identify and distinguish profiles. The label won’t be applied to accounts that use AI to edit photos or captions. This change is a prompt response to users’ concerns that some profiles looked like real people but turned out to be AI. We see dozens of “influencers” in fitness and wellness promoting lifestyles and supplements and making health claims. Users consume such content, follow the advice, and end up losing time, money, and, worst of all, their health. Will it save users from AI profiles? Well, at least they will have enough information to trust these accounts or not.

The new Dyson CamerJet toothbrush will watch out for plaque

On September 1, James Dyson presented a revolutionary (because it is) toothbrush. It has a Gap Optical Targeting camera and a 100,000-pixel lens to identify and floss with a jet burst while brushing the teeth.

The technology analyzes images in real time and triggers a jet burst to remove the dental plaque. Dyson’s toothbrush uses sonic oscillation to move the dual-bristle brush head while brushing.

The toothbrush creates a completely new cleaning experience where flossing is no longer a time-consuming chore we often skip. Finally, the toothbrush is connected via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to the MyDyson app, where users can access guided cleaning, coverage mapping, and customized jetting modes. And charging? It only needs a few seconds on the charging dock to recharge. Check out the presentation of the new Dyson CamerJet.

The Vine generation is getting their Divine

When Vine was shut down in 2017, Millennials had a hard time, and no one would believe that today, nearly a decade later, we have a Divine with the same format and spirit as Vine. The app features a scrolling feed with six-second videos. While the new app is inspired by the original platform, Divine is not formally affiliated with Vine.

Launched last week, the app already has 100,000 users posting 2010s-inspired videos and memes, and everyone is celebrating the return of the platform.

The biggest news about Divine is that it won’t allow you to post AI-generated content. Well, that’s the vibe Millennials have been missing lately. More about Divine here.

The UK is getting its own domestic AI

London-based Flower Labs, a full-stack AI startup, has announced the launch of its Endeavor 1.0 model, an alternative to leading US AI models. The frontier AI model comes as the UK government pushes for domestic alternatives to Silicon Valley AI companies and greater control over data and security. As co-founder Professor Nicholas Lane noted, “Europe should not have to rent its intelligence indefinitely from a handful of US companies.”

Available under license, Endeavor will allow clients to use frontier-level capabilities, train the model on their own data, and extend it with custom agents without transferring that data to a centralized server. Check out the official announcement.

Norway says NO to ‘pervert glasses’

The government of Norway is discussing a law to ban wearable glasses that are potential devices that could violate privacy. They are mainly targeting Meta and Snap wearables with access to the internet that may also have facial recognition and microphones. The news sparked a public backlash; however, if the devices are found to violate privacy rights, the wearables will be banned in public places. Maybe Norway’s case will become a precedent for other governments to take a closer look at gadgets potentially violating users’ privacy.

Featured image: Vinicius “amnx” Amano / Unsplash

Amazon increased hardware prices by 60%. And the most affected products were Fire TVs, Eeros, Echos, and Kindles. The Amazon representative commented on the spike, blaming the significant cost increase of memory and storage components. We have already witnessed a 500% increase in RAM prices over the past 12 months, and it’s no wonder other products are affected. Apple was next to hike prices on Mac and iPad (MacBook Air’s price from $1.099 to $1.299). Living in RAMpocalypse, we should get ready for more surprises. Read more on this topic here.

LA’s air will get busy with air taxis. This Monday, Archer Aviation and AEG announced their plans at L.A. LIVE to develop the first downtown hub for electric air taxis to make short trips across urban areas. An experimental air taxi was spotted first in the skies over San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Archer will be the exclusive air taxi provider for L.A. LIVE, a massive entertainment complex, offering sportsmen, artists, and visitors travel from and to the entertainment center without getting into the city’s traffic. The four-seat taxis will be ready for rides during the 19th Olympic and Paralympic Games. More about the rides here.

Getting dressed in purple to stay cooler. As temperatures are heating up globally, Chinese and Australian scientists have developed a high-tech purple fabric that stays cooler in the hot sun. Compared to white cotton, this fabric stays 6.20C cooler when exposed to direct sunlight.

This innovative solution is made of microscopic fibers of metal-organic framework and zinc oxide nanoparticles. Together, these components give the fabric a distinctive purple color, which reflects 87.6% of solar radiation.

The technology may become a lifesaver for athletes, outdoor workers, or anyone who struggles with high temperatures. It may not be a high-fashion solution, but we are quite ok with that. Read the source.

A new Motorola foldable with GrapheneOS is coming to conquer Millennials’ hearts. I still remember my first Motorola, how modern and fancy it looked. Today, hardly anyone gets the same feeling when buying a new smartphone. Or maybe we will have a flashback with a new Motorola phone.

The flagship will have the open-source version of Android, more secure and reliable. It will be enhanced with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chips, promising to surpass Pixel phones in quality. With flagship-level software support from GrapheneOS, Motorola may have gadgets that can stand alongside Samsung and Google. Follow the news here.

OpenAI banned pro-Russian accounts used in campaigns. Mass blocking followed an investigation that discovered an online influencer campaign was spreading misinformation with AI-generated content. One case led to a “much broader influence operation” that discovered a website and academic work with false information about sovereignty and Russian origins. ChatGPT was used to generate posts and comments on Telegram, Substack, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Well, if OpenAI discovered only the pro-Russian scenario, we have seen multiple hotbeds of false “historic” facts: Caucasus, Middle East, Asia, and others. If false information is unacceptable, then it should be unacceptable regardless of its geography. Read about the news here.

Grand Theft Auto VI CyberLeek update. We (you, me, and anyone who grew up on GTA games) have been waiting for GTA 6 for 13 years, and when the first clips appeared online, they spread in seconds. So, for now, we have a clip of a player moving around a nightclub, a clip of protagonist Jason on a beach, and a clip of Jason looking around a video game retailer.

We are not yet sure of their authenticity, as antivirus provider Malwarebytes claimed these clips to be malicious, especially referring to CyberLeek videos that are most probably taken from a test build of the game. Whether real or fake, we will consume these videos over and over again until fully released.

Read this article and save the date to watch the GTA 6 extended look to be aired on Netflix.

Instagram is making Reel editing smarter. The new “First Draft” editing feature will enable faster Reel editing. It will automatically remove pauses from a clip and create a cut of the best moments. Reel editing, which has already moved to the Edits application, promises to craft a clip in 10 seconds and will first roll out on iPhone.

Well, professional content creators would say they have been using the feature for a while on CapCut and Adobe Firefly, but having more flexibility on Instagram will help us stick to one platform from creation to publishing.

Also, let’s not forget that while we are praising new Instagram features, Meta lost another case of the intentional negative mental impact on teens. As part of the settlement, it will pay $16.7 billion. Find out more about the case on CNBC.

Bill Gates warns governments and international organizations to prepare for rapid AI adoption. The trend we’ve been silently watching is now being openly discussed: AI could displace workers across white- and blue-collar jobs, and entry-level positions will face the greatest pressure.

Gates has raised a broader question of whether it is “the greatest equalizer or the worst source of injustices.” If AI takes over entry-level jobs, how will people gain the experience and progress into senior roles, creating a vicious cycle for the talent pool?

At the same time, governments should also be prepared for AI development. It means they should be prepared for technical and policy challenges in national security, financial systems, employment, elections, etc.

Companies face a similar problem. AI adoption has become something companies pursue simply to remain competitive. Read the full interview with Gates on Gates Notes.

New sweets on your plate: a cookie out of recycled plastic. We have been eating plastic (ok, microplastic) for decades, and now scientists offer to eat plastic consciously. Researchers from Southern Illinois University Carbondale have created a “µBites” cookie that has undergone processing to make it safe to eat. Of course, the process of turning plastic into fabric and food involves different processes. To create µBites cookies, scientists used polyethylene terephthalate plastic and agricultural waste such as leaves and corn stalks. The product is then fed to yeast, which converts it into nutritious food.

After reading the news, I recalled “The Snowpiercer,” a post-apocalyptic movie in which people were eating protein bars made from cockroaches. Let’s hope we start using global resources so that we will never need either protein blocks or plastic cookies.

Nvidia is buying Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. We can still call this news speculative since neither side has confirmed it. If true, the deal will become one of the biggest acquisitions of Nvidia. Read more about the acquisition.

Founded by 3 French entrepreneurs and based in New York, Hugging Face appeared at the center of a scandal when 1200 AI agents started communicating and eventually hacked into Hugging Face.

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P.S. 20 years ago, my lecturer told me we would all have smartphones with touch screens, and we thought it was just a fantasy. Now I’m sitting in my self-driving car chatting with ChatGPT as if there is someone on the other side. I don’t know what we will discuss next year, but today, let’s talk about facts.

The 5 Most Surprising Tech Trends of 2025

Biotechnology Breakthroughs: From Theory to Reality

This field has always been more about theories and fantasies, but not this year. While AI dominates headlines, biotechnology is quietly achieving breakthroughs.

• Lab-grown heart patches are already in the trial phase. Engineered heart tissue now integrates with damaged heart muscle within weeks, restoring 40% of cardiac function in post-heart attack patients. Can you imagine a future where a heart attack no longer means permanent damage?

• Synthetic bacteria can clean microplastic pollution. This scalable solution may put an end to the ethereal struggle of plastic pollution. Each synthetic bacteria colony can process 50 tons of microplastic waste annually in a square kilometer, breaking it down into harmless organic compounds.

• CRISPR 3.0 can achieve single-cell precision. The next-generation CRISPR targets specific neurons in brain tissue and treats neurological disorders through ultra-precise DNA modification. This can be the future for treating Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and rare genetic brain disorders.

• The first bioengineered human embryo reaches early development. The most controversial news that raised ethical debates is the reality. Scientists have grown a synthetic embryo without an egg or sperm, which has been virtually impossible. The innovation will help understand miscarriages and genetic diseases before birth. No one knows how it will be used in the future.

• A synthetic biology startup designs self-repairing clothing. Sustainable fashion is outdated. The new-era solution is self-repairing clothes with engineered bacteria that activate when tears occur, producing new fibers to heal damage within hours. This technology could reduce 92 million tons of textile waste every year.

Living Intelligence: The Great Convergence

The most fascinating trend isn’t about one technology but a blend of three. AI provides processing and decision-making, advanced sensors enable environmental perception, and bioengineering allows biological integration. Together, they create systems that interact with and adapt to the physical world.

For example, AlphaFold Server contains 200 million protein structures, accelerating drug discovery from years to months.

Real-world impact: Healthcare companies can combine AI diagnostics with continuous biometric monitoring. Retailers can create environments that sense and respond to customer behavior and needs in real time. This isn’t science fiction; it’s happening now.

Nuclear Power: Tech Giants Become Power Companies

Tech companies have a new “interest”: investing in nuclear power, particularly in carbon-free energy to power massive AI systems. The most significant event is Microsoft’s Crane Clean Energy Center, which will become its data center to cover AI’s massive energy demands.

Why do you need this information? Because every question asked to ChatGPT or Gemini is energy, a lot of energy. Imagine there are about 800 million weekly OpenAI users. Each prompt uses 0.4 watt-hours of electricity. Multiply that out, and you get 320 million watt-hours or 320 megawatt-hours, in total. That’s approximately the amount of electricity 30 average U.S. homes use in an entire year. Or about the energy output of a mid-sized wind farm running for one hour.

Software companies are becoming energy producers to support their technologies.

Metamaterials: Engineering Physics Itself

While most people have never heard of metamaterials (which is absolutely normal), this technology may be as transformative as semiconductors. Those substances are designed at the microscopic level with properties that transcend natural limitations, manipulating light, sound, heat, and mechanical stress.

Dr. Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania explains: “In metamaterials, we go beyond natural arrangements to a new level of organization. We design our own collection of tiny structures using multiple materials. The difference is, we can create new properties that are not found in nature.”

The crazy part? AI compresses metamaterials development timelines from decades to days or even hours. Acoustic metamaterials can reduce sound transmission by 94%. Buildings can regulate their own temperature without external energy. Infrastructure can adapt to weather extremes. The applications are endless, from construction, energy, telecommunications, and every physical industry.

Cislunar Economy: The $100 Billion Space Frontier

This looks as futuristic as it sounds. The space between Earth and the Moon is becoming humanity’s newest economic zone. And while we don’t quite realize how they would monetize it, private companies have already invested over $100 billion in the discovery of lunar water ice at the poles, rare earth elements, and the potential for zero-gravity manufacturing.

Pharmaceutical compounds, semiconductor crystals, and fiber optics can be created in space with properties impossible to achieve on Earth. SpaceX’s Starship, Blue Origin’s orbital stations, and China’s International Lunar Research Station are building the infrastructure.

The 5 Most Popular and Impactful Trends

Agentic AI: From Tools to Autonomous Actors

AI has changed from content generators to autonomous decision-makers. The term “AI assistant” will be replaced with “agentic AI,” which sets its own goals, makes independent decisions, executes complex strategies, and adapts based on outcomes. Scary?

Why this is a trend: Over 70% of enterprises using AI agents have already seen increased efficiency in automating certain business processes (Stanford HAI Survey). In financial services, AI now handles fraud detection, optimizes portfolios, and assesses risk autonomously in real time. In healthcare, AI diagnoses with 85%+ accuracy. Supply chains self-optimize through AI-driven demand forecasting and predictive maintenance.

The shift is significant, but the success is not about handling all business processes with AI. The success is about finding AI solutions that help humans use their potential to the fullest.

Blockchain Integration in the Industries

Once, blockchain was “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” but this year, blockchain integration is already widely practiced in critical sectors.

This shift toward using blockchain as invisible infrastructure, rather than a marketing buzzword, marks the beginning of blockchain’s use as a practical business tool. Companies discovered that blockchain’s value is in creating shared, verified records that multiple parties can trust without a central authority.

Multimodal AI: Understanding Like Humans

And again, we are talking about AI, which will start learning as humans do: observe, listen, and synthesize. We will soon be able to communicate with AI and transition from format to format as smoothly as possible.

Even now, many users communicate with AI like with humans, and, unfortunately, this human-like interaction leads to tragedies as well. Humans truly feel like they are interacting with an emotionally intelligent human because of AI’s emotion detection and natural speech patterns. But there should always be a line of reality not to be crossed.

Advanced Robotics: Breaking Free from Factories

After decades of promise, robots are finally escaping controlled environments. Scary! So far, the machines have been kept away from humans in “cages,” but this year, the advancement in AI finally gave robots freedom. And immediately, Siemens reported 90% automation cost reductions with AI-enabled robots.

Where robots are going: Today, already 10% of all industrial robot installations are collaborative robots. In healthcare, surgical robots excellently handle even the most complicated procedures. In agriculture, autonomous systems support precision farming with 90% less pesticide use, contributing to organic farming. In construction, robots handle dangerous tasks and 3D print complex structures. In warehousing, Amazon-style automation becomes standard. In short, robots fully handle the role of “making our lives easier.”

Quantum Computing: Finally Ready for Prime Time

After 40 years of being “5 years away,” quantum computing now has practical applications (almost). The technology is applied as a pilot system to logistics, finance, pharmaceuticals, and science. Most surprising breakthroughs are seen in drug discovery, molecular modeling, and financial risk analysis, where traditional solutions fall behind. For people like me, advances in quantum computing may not be significant, but for enterprises, it means faster R&D cycles and lower costs.

What’s already working: Siemens projects 20% reductions in energy grid inefficiencies using quantum algorithms.

Critical Challenges, Ethical Concerns, and Strategic Opportunities

The Challenges

• Data Shortage Crisis: High-quality training data may be depleted by 2026, according to Epoch AI. Solutions include synthetic data, private data licensing (costing hundreds of millions), and alternative training methods like self-play.

• Energy Crisis: AI workloads could reach 3-4% of global electricity by 2030. Data centers consume millions of gallons of water for cooling. While AI solves millions of tasks, making our lives easier, it has a heavy load on our environment. Solutions include energy-efficient architectures, clean energy sources (nuclear SMRs and renewables), and algorithmic improvements.

• Technical Debt: Being and staying competitive means keeping businesses up-to-date with modern systems. However, organizations discover infrastructure modernization costs 5-10x their AI project budgets. Data standardization, quality improvement, and integration of siloed systems are hidden costs and challenges to be addressed before AI integration.

• Talent War: The rapid development of technologies has led to a significant talent shortage in the market. 60% of organizations will see a slowdown in growth pace next year because of a shortage in digital skills. Think of the vicious cycle: talent scarcity delays adoption, creating competitive gaps that become harder to close because of talent scarcity.

• Cybersecurity: The more digital ecosystems grow, the more cybersecurity threats become frequent and risky. New attack vectors include AI-powered phishing with 54%+ success rates, model theft through queries, data poisoning, and more. To stay secure, organizations now have to allocate 20-30% of AI budgets to security.

The Ethical Concerns of Technologies

• Bias and Misinformation: The 2026 innovations are not only technological but moral because they raise questions rather than give answers. The mass production of AI-generated content will soon create an era where everything will be questioned, and only experience will have absolute value.

• The Evil Deepfake: Unfortunately, the powerful technology is used against humans to generate compromising images for blackmail. Synthetic media, including visual and audio, questions the confidence and safety in digital content.

• AI regulations: Governments already take actions to regulate the technology and keep it under strict regulations. However, as far as the tech is new and the laws are written just on the knee, tech owners find ways to bypass the regulations and use AI against human rights.

The Opportunities

For all the risks and disruptions, 2025’s technologies also open up opportunities, marking the beginning of humanity’s most capable era.

• Sustainability with Real Results: Sustainability is moving from a moral goal to a built-in feature of daily life. Smart cities will have renewable energy and smart water management, efficient transportation, and more green spaces. Temperature-adaptive materials mean cities could soon stabilize their own temperatures, waste could regenerate, and pollution could be neutralized at the source. Sustainability will no longer depend on good intentions; it will be engineered into the world around us.

• New Class of Professionals: Massive adaptation of AI will create a totally new class of professionals to cover the technology, regulations, and ethics. Demand is huge, and the talent shortage is more than real. In 2024, the AI talent gap was 50% and it is not getting better. It means there is an enormous opportunity with high-paying jobs in the market, growing exponentially.

• Personalized and Accessible Education: When used correctly, AI tutors become true partners for adaptive learning, always available and responsive. They will know learners’ weaknesses and adjust materials accordingly, maximizing learning outcomes. Still, this opportunity will be valuable if supported by educational institutions.

• Cutting Automated Processes and Human Labor: The massive adoption of AI, robots, and cobots started closing labor gaps in manufacturing, logistics, and the service sector. These collaborative robots have already improved productivity by 20% and reduced labor costs by 50%.

Technologies for a Better Future

Fortunately, not all technologies are meant to replace humans (I hope).

Engineered Organisms for Climate: Plastic pollution, one of the most disturbing environmental issues, may have a solution. Bacteria engineered to eat plastic (breaking down polymers in weeks instead of centuries), algae modified for 2-3x carbon absorption, and microbes restoring degraded soil are now widely explored for their potential.

AI for Scientific Discovery: With technology, it is now possible to compress decades of research into years. For example, Insilico Medicine designed a drug for fibrosis in months instead of years. Materials science now virtually tests 200 million+ potential combinations before synthesis.

Precision Agriculture: AI and robotics already change agriculture at the individual plant level. For example, John Deere’s See & Spray technology reduces herbicide use by 90%. Results include 30-50% water savings, 40-60% less fertilizer, and 15-30% yield improvements, critical for feeding 10 billion people by 2050.

Clean Energy: More cities are moving to clean energy. For example, Perovskite solar cells reach 25-30% efficiency at 50% lower cost compared to silicon batteries. To support the growing ecosystem of EVs, the industry invests more in solid-state batteries, which will offer 2-3x energy density with 15-minute full charging. These and other technologies will make carbon-free energy economically dominant.

Healthcare Democratization: AI is assisting and already diagnosing with doctors. A new Microsoft-developed system matched expert physicians in solving 79.9% of complex clinical cases while cutting diagnostic costs by more than 50%. This kind of innovation will make precision medicine smarter and more affordable.

A Final Note from the Author

Before all this AI fuss, I read about tech trends with less emotion. Year after year, my excitement and anxiety levels increase because I believe some discoveries should remain unexplored. Hope these trends we explored today will bring us to the point that we never regret them.

Written by Anush Bichakhchyan for InTech.Express | 2025 November
Photo by Kevin Shi on Unsplash

As we see in practice, the search market is on the brink of major transformation. With new entrants like ChatGPT’s integrated search and Meta’s upcoming search engine, traditional players face fresh competition. These developments signal a shift towards AI-enhanced, personalized search experiences, potentially redefining how users interact with information on the web.

ChatGPT Launches Its Own Search Engine

In a major development, OpenAI expanded ChatGPT’s capabilities by introducing a built-in search engine. This addition is expected to have a significant impact on user experience, accessibility, and information retrieval.

• Real-Time Information Access: Users can now access real-time information directly within ChatGPT, making it useful for current events, live updates, and up-to-date knowledge.

• Competitor to Google and Bing: With this release, OpenAI is stepping into a domain traditionally dominated by Google, Bing, and other established search engines.

• Integrated AI Features: The search engine combines natural language understanding with search functionality, making it easier for users to receive contextually relevant answers.

• Enhanced Privacy Controls: OpenAI has emphasized privacy, offering options for data management and transparency in data usage.

• Availability: Initially rolled out to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise subscribers, with plans to expand to a broader audience over the coming months.

This new feature positions ChatGPT not only as an AI assistant but as a direct competitor to traditional search engines, promising a unique blend of conversational AI and search capabilities.

See more on this topic:

Facebook’s search engine is on the way

In a surprising move, Meta (formerly Facebook) has announced plans to build its own search engine. This project signifies Meta's effort to expand beyond social media and strengthen its hold in the tech industry.

• Focus on Social Context in Search Results: Meta’s search engine aims to leverage its vast social data to provide personalized, socially relevant search results.

• Potential Challenges: Competing with Google’s search dominance may be difficult, especially given Meta’s recent privacy concerns and controversies.

• Integration with Meta’s Platforms: The search engine is expected to integrate across Meta’s ecosystem, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, allowing users to search across these platforms seamlessly.

• Privacy and Data Concerns: Meta has faced scrutiny over user data handling, and privacy advocates are watching closely to see how this search engine will manage and protect user information.

• AI and Machine Learning Enhancement: Meta’s search tool will likely integrate AI for improved accuracy and relevance, enhancing user experience with tailored results.

If successful, Meta’s search engine could become a substantial player in the market, leveraging its unique social data to offer a distinct alternative to current search engines.

Stay up-to-date with us.

These firms collectively contributed 20.8 billion Armenian drams in taxes, reflecting a 4% increase. However, eight of the top 20 IT taxpayers saw reduced tax payments, notably Veeam Armenia, DataArt, and NVIDIA, mainly due to lower income tax contributions.

According to the Global Startup Ecosystem Report by StartupBlink, Armenia holds the top position in the Caucasus region, with a score double that of its nearest competitor, Georgia. This ranking is based on three key factors: quality, quantity, and the business environment. In 2023, Armenia’s startup ecosystem climbed three spots, reaching 15th place in Eastern Europe and 57th globally.

Armenia's Tech and Startup Scene: A Year of Expansion and Innovation

The number of IT companies in Armenia has doubled since 2022, with a 30% growth in employment, showcasing the country's thriving tech sector and its allure for global talent.

Startup Surge: Armenia's startup ecosystem has made impressive strides, rising three spots in both Eastern Europe and globally according to the Global Startup Ecosystem Report by StartupBlink. This progress has attracted substantial venture capital, with Armenia securing 90% of the region's investments.

New Support Initiatives: Initiatives like "From Idea to Business" offer funding for startups to commercialize projects, while "Neruzh" taps into diaspora expertise.

Expansion of Established Players: Major global tech firms are taking notice of Armenia's potential, exemplified by Yandex's establishment of offices, adding to the country's tech vibrancy.

AI Dominance: Generative AI has taken center stage in Armenia's tech landscape, with many startups leveraging AI in their products. Picsart, a local unicorn, leads in AI-driven image generation.

Tax Incentives: The "On State Support of the IT Sector" law continues to provide tax breaks for startups, fostering an innovation-friendly atmosphere.

Overall, Armenia's tech and startup ecosystem is flourishing, with rapid growth, substantial investments, and an ecosystem conducive to tech innovation and entrepreneurship.

See also: NVIDIA becomes the most valuable company for the first time

When the dawn of technological hurricanes made its entrance into business, trade, international relations, education, and all aspects of modern society in general, very few had the prevision of tech becoming a giant cutting-edge industry, hosting and modifying almost all professional spheres known to mankind.

Nowadays, however, the picture is bigger, clearer and costs double as many billions with each day that goes by. Technology as a notion, as a dangerously deified sector, especially in business and trade, has very sharply become the epicenter and ultimate “stakeholder” of all deals sealed behind closed doors.

Everything is single-handedly invested in technology and it tends to invest everything back in us: the comfort of our lives, our opportunities, and our capabilities. As of today, without the participation of at least one certain type of tech product in our routine, we cannot bear to imagine our living. Since the first windmills in 700–900 AD till the latest Apple Vision Pro, society has been dependent on innovations that go far beyond manual labor. And this, out of all blessings by science, is a human right and no longer a privilege.

Facts and figures in 2024

According to the latest report by Statista, If 2023 was the year of AI hype, 2024 is the year of widespread AI adoption that is set to significantly transform multiple aspects of society. In response to signs of improving economic conditions after a tough 2023, businesses in 2024 will increasingly implement new digital technologies to adapt and transform existing products and services.

Overall worldwide IT spending is forecast to increase by eight percent between 2023 and 2024, reaching approximately five trillion U.S. dollars, as organizations invest in emerging technologies to drive business and digital transformation. Key themes in 2024 revolve around widespread generative AI adoption across industries and the accompanying services to meet this demand.

Here’s your list of Europe’s top-tier tech conferences scheduled for 2024

CloudFest

18 March - 24 March 2024
Germany | Rust | Europa-Park | Europa-Park-Straße 2, 77977 Rust

Organized in the heart of a theme park, there is a chunkload of reasons to work at this unmissable tech conference. The event connects the global cloud computing industry and this year’s spirit will concentrate on “The Resilient Cloud”, observing how to future-proof business continuity in a disruptive society.

To be expected: 8,000+ participants, 250+ speakers, 150+ partners, and 80+ countries

Check out the official website and get your tickets starting from 499 euros. 

IBM TechXchange: AI Governance

20 March 2024
Belgium | Brussels | IBM Client Center | Brussels Leopold Square Avenue du Bourget/Bourgetlaan 42, Brussels

IBM works extensively with risks associated with the implementation and use of AI: regulatory risk, reputational risk, and operational risk. In this session, those risks, their mitigation, and the proper end-to-end governance of AI will be discussed.

Check out the official website and register online. 

Pycon Lithuania 2024

2 April - 6 April 2024
Lithuania | Vilnius | SMK University of Applied Social Sciences | Kalvarijų g. 137E, Vilnius, 08211 Vilniaus m. sav.

PyCon Lithuania 2024 is a massive event on data, web, and more, promising 60+ sessions and 600+ attendees. Featuring keynotes by PyDanny, Ritchie Vink, Arjan Codes, Robert Smallshire, and Tom Christie.

Check out the official website and get your tickets online. 

Paris Blockchain Week

9 April - 11 April 2024
France | Paris | Carrousel du Louvre | 99 Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris

Join the event for the most influential gathering of professionals in blockchain and Web3 at the magnificent Carrousel du LOUVRE. Paris Blockchain Week is the most significant event in the blockchain industry that brings together some of the brightest minds in person.

2023 Stats: 8,500+ thought leaders, and 400+ speakers, joined executives and change-makers from major companies of which 61.3% were c-suite plus 400+ media and journalists.

Check out the official website and get your tickets online. 

Rise of AI Conference

15 May 2024
Germany | Berlin | Humboldt Carré | Behrenstraße 42, 10117 Berlin

The Rise of AI Conference has been reporting great success since its launch in 2014. Ever since then, it’s been uniting the best decision-makers and innovators in the industry. This year’s Rise of AI will also touch on topics like the broader application of AI in politics, the economy, and society in general.

To be expected: 1,000+ companies, and 2,000+ AI societies

Check out the official website and join the event.

Viva Technology 

22 May - 25 May 2024

France | Paris | Porte de Versailles | 1 Pl. de la Prte de Versailles, 75015 Paris

Speakers who have previously attended this top-tier event, include tech heavyweights like Elon Musk, Marc Benioff, and 26 more world leaders and celebrities. Buckle up because this is a one-of-a-kind IT conference where tech giants and startups compete relentlessly.

Check out the official website and book your pass as a startupper at 210 euros, as an attendee at 475 euros, and as an investor at 620 euros. 

Dublin Tech Summit 

29 May - 30 May 2024

Ireland | Dublin | RDS | 4 Anglesea Rd, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, D04 N2A4

Being Europe’s fastest-growing tech festival, this unique event covers everything from AI, robotics, drone deliveries, privacy, space travel, and the potential for human immortality. DTS24 speakers include specialists like Dr. Omar Hatamleh, Chief Advisor at NASA, and Sasha Rubel, Head of Public Policy for AI & Machine Learning at Amazon.

To be expected: 200+ international speakers, 60 represented countries, 150+ startups, 80+ corporate partners, 8000+ attendees, and 200+ global media representatives.

Check out the official website and buy your tickets for 335 euros until March 31.

Infosecurity Europe

4 June - 6 June 2024
UK | London | Excel London | Royal Victoria Dock, 1 Western Gateway

Infosecurity Europe is a leveled-up technology conference for cybersecurity professionals. It is aimed to bring the digital privacy community around one table to share innovations, foster connections, and present their brainchild in cybersecurity.

To be expected: 13,800+ Individual information and cybersecurity professional visitors, 380+ exhibitors, 200+ speakers, and 90+ hours of CPE credits.

Check out the official website and register online.

South Summit

5 June - 7 June 2024
Spain | Madrid | La Nave | C. Cifuentes, 5, Villaverde, 28021 Madrid

There is nothing better than pairing a trip to sunny Spain with experiencing an inspirational gathering of the tech industry's biggest disruptors. South Summit is a meeting point for innovators who come together to mold a different business world based on more sustainable practices.

Check out the official website and get your tickets online.

The AI Summit London

12 June - 13 June 2024
UK | London | Tobacco Dock | London E1W 2JG

The AI Summit London presents a variety of activities that AI enthusiasts, developers, and business leaders will struggle to find elsewhere. The workshops include solution centers, accelerator hubs, matchmaking, lounges for networking, actionable tips, and everything imaginable in between.

Check out the official website and book your pass online.

London Tech Week

10 June - 14 June 2024
UK | London | London Olympia | Hammersmith Rd, London W14 8UX

London Tech Week is back again to celebrate its 10th anniversary! This week-long expo is a technology appreciation gathering and a great opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs to showcase their brainstorming about technology’s transformation of business and society.

Check out the official website and book your pass online. Premium passes cost 495 euros for attendees, 195 euros for startuppers, and 395 euros for investors.

The Next Web Conference

20 June - 21 June 2024
The Netherlands | Amsterdam | Taets Art and Event Park | Middenweg 62 Hembrugterrein, 1505RK Zaandam

Located in Zaandam, this event is claimed as The Next Web Conference (TNW) and happens to be the biggest breeding ground for tech giants outside of San Francisco. Attracting the leaders of big-name brands like Meta, Google X, and HSBC, this expo uses a drop of AI magic to pair delegates and make suggestions for more meaningful get-togethers.

To be expected: 10,000+ attendees, 220+ exhibiting companies, 800+ media outreach staff, 54% decision makers, 300+ investors, and 190+ speakers

Check out the official website and get your tickets before the deadlines.

Turing Fest 2024

9 July - 10 July 2024
Scotland | Edinburgh | EICC | The Exchange, 150 Morrison St, Edinburgh EH3 8EE

Software engineers, data analysts, product managers, digital marketers, and growth specialists are all wholeheartedly welcome to attend Turing Fest 2023, which is aimed at helping aspiring entrepreneurs and startuppers shape their organizations.

To be expected: 1,200+ attendees, 40+ speakers, and 40+ partners

Check out the official website and get your tickets online.

Gamescom 2024

21 August - 25 August 2024
Germany | Cologne | Koelnmesse | Messepl. 1, 50679 Köln

Welcome to Gamescom, the world's largest gaming event and Europe's leading business platform for the games industry! Every year, the most important international players meet to present games and innovations, identify new trends, network, and open up new business opportunities.

Check out the official website for additional information. 

IFA Berlin

6 September - 10 September 2024
Germany | Berlin | Messe Berlin | Messedamm 22, 14055 Berlin

This year IFA Berlin is marking its 100th anniversary. Europe’s biggest consumer technology trade show, widely considered to be Europe’s version of CES, will blow your mind from multiple perspectives. This centennial event has room to boast about a century of technological advancement, from Albert Einstein’s 1930 appearance to the launch of the gadgets we recognize today.

2023 Stats: 2285 exhibitors, 139 countries, 187 speakers, 182,000+ visitors

Check out the official website and pre-register your attendance.

LINQ Conference

September 2024
Limassol, Cyprus | Warehouse by IT Quarter

The Linq Qonference invites leaders from various sectors to gather in Limassol, Cyprus, from September 14th to 16th. It is an event that stands on four pillars—MIND, BODY, SPIRIT, TECH—drawing inspiration from ancient yoga practices and symbolizing a new era of leadership. Attendees, whether they are trailblazing tech visionaries, seasoned investors, or dynamic executives, represent the essence of genuine leadership.

The event serves as a platform for the brightest minds to come together, enhance their skills, and build a community driven by integrity, passion, and a relentless pursuit of professional advancement. At Linq Qonference, leadership converges with innovation, creating an environment where collaboration fuels progress.

Check out the official website

Linux Security Summit 2024

16 September - 17 September 2024
Austria | Vienna | Autsria Center Vienna | Bruno-Kreisky-Platz 1, 1220 Wien

Linux Security Summit (LSS) is a technical forum for collaboration between Linux developers, researchers, and end users with the primary aim of fostering community efforts to analyze and solve Linux security challenges.

Check out the official website and register online. 

AI & Big Data Expo

1 October - 2 October 2024
The Netherlands | Amsterdam | RAI | Europaplein 24, 1078 GZ Amsterdam

The AI & Big Data Expo is a leading conference and exhibition that unravels aspiring technologies and strategies of the next generation. The expo hands you a chance to explore the practical and successful implementation of AI and big data that can potentially help your business blossom. This conference is co-hosted alongside the IoT Tech Expo, the largest global gathering for the sector.

To be expected: 21,000+ attendees, 7 co-located events, 550+ speakers, and 650+ exhibitors.

Check out the official website for additional information. 

WCIT 2024

4 - 7 October, 2024 | Yerevan, Armenia

The World Congress on Innovation and Technology (WCIT) 2024 is set to take place in Armenia from October 4-7, under the theme “The Power of Mind: AI Beyond Limits, Within Ethics.”

This event, held in high-level partnership with DigiTec, the region’s premier annual innovation and technology expo, promises a rich program featuring a high-level Congress, B2B meetings, the WITSA World Cup (WWC) for scale-ups, innovation showcases, business presentations, workshops, and more.

WCIT 2024 will spotlight Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its implications for society, ethics, and the future. Experts from diverse fields will gather to explore topics such as ethical innovation, human-machine collaboration, and global AI regulations under the overarching theme “Ethics, Society, and Governance.”

The event will also feature sessions on “Green AI,” focusing on environmentally sustainable AI solutions, and “AI in Social Media and Marketing,” which will discuss strategies for reaching marginalized consumers and improving marketing efficiency.

Another highlight of WCIT 2024 is “The Female Grace of AI,” which aims to promote gender equality and economic empowerment in the digital realm.

Register as an exhibitor or visitor here

World AI Cannes Festival (WAICF)

8 October - 10 October 2024
France | Cannes | Palais des Festivals et des Congrés | Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, 1 Bd de la Croisette, 06400 Cannes

WAICF is all about displaying the capabilities of the latest AI models to untangle the world’s harshest business and societal issues. Attendees will get constructive criticism from both industry leaders and tech innovators for their projects.

To be expected: 16,000 attendees, 300 international speakers, 250 sessions, and 230 exhibitors

Check out the official website and register online.

World Summit AI

9 October - 10 October 2024
The Netherlands | Amsterdam | Taets Art and Event Park | Middenweg 62 Hembrugterrein, 1505RK Zaandam

Seen by tech leaders as the platform to launch their latest AI products and services and regarded as the world's leading startup and investor network, WSAI gathers the global AI ecosystem of Enterprise, Big Tech, Startups, Investors, Science, and Academia to set the global AI agenda, every October in Amsterdam.

Check out the official website and book your tickets online. 

Web Summit

11 November - 14 November 2024
Portugal | Lisbon | Altice Arena and Lisbon Exhibition & Congress Centre

Web Summit is a nest for the global technology community, uniting tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, investors, thought leaders, and even high-profile celebrities. Attendees will go through the waves of a feature-packed program featuring keynote speeches, panel discussions, startup presentations, and workshops, focusing on mainstream topics such as AI, cybersecurity, and fintech.

To be expected: 800+ speakers, 2,600+ startups, 900+ investors. 2,100+ media members, 320+ partners, 70,000 attendees, and 150+ countries.

Check out the official website and pre-register online.

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In December of last year, Google integrated Gemini Pro into Bard in English, enhancing Bard's comprehension, logical processing, summarization, and coding skills. Today, Gemini Pro within Bard is launching in over 40 languages and spanning more than 230 countries and territories, enabling a broader audience to engage with this upgraded, swifter iteration of Bard for collaborative endeavors.

The Large Model Systems Organization, renowned for assessing language models and chatbots in various languages, has recently stated that Bard equipped with Gemini Pro stands out as one of the most favored chatbots, regardless of cost. They highlighted its remarkable advancement, describing it as a "stunning leap" forward. Furthermore, independent blind evaluations conducted by our third-party assessors have recognized Bard with Gemini Pro as one of the highest-performing conversational AIs when compared to prominent free and paid alternatives.

Verify your replies across multiple languages

Recognizing the desire for users to verify Bard's responses, we're enhancing our double-check feature, already utilized by millions in English, to encompass over 40 languages. Upon clicking the "G" icon, Bard will assess if web content corroborates its response. If verifiable, users can click highlighted phrases to explore additional information supporting or contradicting Bard's response found through Search.

Give life to your concepts with image creation

To enhance your creativity, you can now generate images within Bard in English, accessible in most countries globally, free of charge. This enhanced capability is driven by our refined Imagen 2 model, meticulously crafted to maintain a balance between quality and speed, resulting in photorealistic outputs of high caliber. Simply input a description, such as "produce an image of a dog surfing," and Bard will craft personalized, diverse visuals to breathe life into your ideas.

Aligned with Google's AI Principles, image generation was developed with a focus on responsibility. To maintain transparency and distinguish between visuals generated with Bard and original human artwork, Bard employs SynthID. This technology embeds digitally identifiable watermarks into the pixels of generated images, ensuring clear differentiation.

Google's technical safeguards and commitments to data safety aim to mitigate the presence of violent, offensive, or sexually explicit content. Furthermore, Google implements filters to prevent the generation of images featuring identifiable individuals. They have declared their ongoing investment in innovative techniques to enhance the safety and privacy measures of their models.

These enhancements further solidify Bard as an increasingly valuable and universally accessible AI partner, assisting with endeavors ranging from significant creative projects to routine tasks. Explore its capabilities today at bard.google.com.

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Summary of the major tech industry updates

Week of January 14-21, 2024

Apple's Vision Pro

Initial reactions to the $799 headset are mixed, with praise for the web experience but concerns about Apple's walled-garden approach. Developers are exploring potential applications beyond gaming and entertainment. See more >

Commercial supersonic flight

The X-59's success brings the dream of quieter supersonic travel closer to reality, potentially reducing flight times significantly.

NASA unveiled its X-59 aircraft in Palmdale, California, on Friday as a part of the agency's Quesst mission, aimed at enabling commercial supersonic flight. Quesst focuses on showcasing the X-59's ability to achieve supersonic speeds without producing disruptive sonic booms and assessing the noise levels experienced by people when the aircraft flies overhead. See more >

AI progress

Advancements in AI continue, with applications in scientific research, robotics, and environmental sustainability raising both excitement and concerns about potential misuse.

Over the past few years, there has been a notable increase in the advancement and utilization of generative AI tools, capable of replicating human voices and producing realistic video clones of individuals. These AI technologies can create fresh content, encompassing text, images, videos, and audio, by leveraging the knowledge acquired from the data on which they were trained. The swift progress in generative AI has sparked both enthusiasm and apprehension. Read more >

Samsung’s Smart Ring may change the wearable industry

The introduction of Samsung's smart ring could mark the beginning of a new era in wearable technology. Samsung provided limited information about its Galaxy Ring, yet it adds to the evidence that 2024 is emerging as a year featuring competitors for the Oura Ring. Read more >

OnePlus Watch 2 release date leaks

The future of wearables looks increasingly diverse. OnePlus is poised for a notable return to the smartwatch market by introducing the OnePlus Watch 2 at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024. This latest smartwatch is designed to address the shortcomings of its predecessor by embracing Google's Wear OS, a departure from the basic operating system used in the original version. More details >

Reddit plans IPO in March 2024

Reddit, the social media platform, has formulated comprehensive strategies for its initial public offering (IPO) scheduled for March. This marks a significant step forward in the company's pursuit of a public listing, a goal it has been contemplating for over three years, as per individuals familiar with the situation. Read more >

Meta plans to manage computing power equivalent to 600,000 H100 GPUs

Meta aims to handle computing power equivalent to "600,000 H100 GPUs" by the end of the year, which includes the incorporation of 340,000 H100 Nvidia GPUs in its data centers.

Driving the enthusiasm for generative AI is the belief that the tech industry is heading towards achieving a level of superhuman, god-like intelligence.

OpenAI has a stated mission to develop this artificial general intelligence (AGI), and Demis Hassabis, the leader of Google's AI efforts, shares the same objective. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, is now joining the race. Although he hasn't specified a timeline for AGI or a precise definition, he is determined to create it. Simultaneously, he is reorganizing Meta's AI research group, FAIR, to collaborate with the team developing generative AI products across Meta's apps. The aim is to ensure that Meta's AI breakthroughs more directly benefit its billions of users. See more >

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Deals of 2023

• The mega-deal of the year was Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which reshaped the gaming landscape. 

• OpenAI was valued at $100 billion, making it a beacon of excitement in the field of generative intelligence.

• Sustainable tech, taking center stage, got over $541.6 billion in investments for renewable energy, green AI, and carbon capture solutions.

2023 was a year of technological leaps and bounds, fueled by record-breaking investments and a thirst for innovation. 

Microsoft and Google continue to compete for supremacy in the quantum computing race, having made significant technological breakthroughs. Elon Musk’s Neuralink has achieved human trial approval, and no one knows how it will revolutionize human-machine interaction. Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse disrupted the tech funding landscape, sending shockwaves through the tech industry.

In fact, 2023 was too turbulent to remember all the major events. It is even harder to predict where the tech sector is heading in 2024 and beyond. Without romanticizing the future or being too pessimistic, let’s simply list the top five tech segments and innovations within the segments. 

Generative AI

This would be inconsistent if we started the list with something other than generative AI. Beyond chatbots and text generation, generative AI immediately changed game rules, revolutionizing design, content creation, and even drug discovery. 

Key trends in generative AI

75% of generative AI is shared between customer operations, software engineering, and marketing. The numbers will change rapidly due to the expansion of AI in other segments. 

• In customer service, generative AI will handle most operations, offering instant and accurate responses, customer data gathering and analysis, personalized recommendations, etc. 

• In marketing, AI solutions will enable hyper-quick marketing content creation, automate repetitive tasks, provide extensive data analysis for data-driven decision-making, omnichannel strategy optimization, etc. 

• In software engineering, generative AI will streamline requirement gathering, UI template creation, code snippet generation, and crafting test cases. 

The expansion of AI will be driven by the increasing demand for personalized content, automation, and scientific breakthroughs. 

Figures and statistics

• The global generative AI market is expected to reach $66.62 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 20.80%.

• 65% of generative AI users are Gen Z and Millennials.

• 2.3 billion images were generated by Dall-E2 within its first two months of public beta.

Biggest deals of 2023

• OpenAI: Creators of Dall-E 2, a leading text-to-image generative AI platform, attracted over $1 billion in funding, including a $100 billion valuation in 2023.

• RunwayML: The company, which is developing AI tools for fashion design and generation, secured $4.3 million in seed funding in 2023 and already has partnerships with major fashion brands.

• Anthropic: Develops advanced language models and aims to build safe and reliable AI. It raised $750 million in an ongoing funding round in 2024, and its valuation estimates range from $15 billion to $30 billion.

• Inflection AI: Building the "largest AI cluster in the world" to develop powerful AI assistants. The company secured $1.3 billion in funding in 2023, led by Microsoft and prominent investors, and has partnerships with companies like Nvidia.

The future of generative AI

Generative AI will get bigger and more serious, making a huge impact on enterprises. 

• By 2026, 100 million humans will interact with robo-colleagues. 

• By 2028, there will be more AI-powered tools than frontline workers in retail, logistics, and manufacturing, cutting labor shortages.

• By 2027, 15% of applications will be AI-generated without any human intervention. 

Cybersecurity

The expansion of digital infrastructure has led to an increase in cyberattacks. The demand for robust cybersecurity solutions and cybersecurity startups attracted $16.7 billion in funding, reflecting the urgency of dealing with increasing threats. 

Figures and statistics

• The global cybersecurity market is estimated to reach $183.10 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 10.56%.

• 98% of organizations experienced a cyberattack in 2023, resulting in a cost of $4.45 million due to data breaches.

• AI-powered cybersecurity solutions saw a 36% increase in investment in 2023.

Big players

• Crowdstrike: Leading endpoint security provider, boasting over $4.7 billion in annual revenue.

• Palo Alto Networks: This networking giant has a strong emphasis on cloud security, with annual revenue surpassing $5 billion.

• Cisco: The company offers comprehensive security solutions across network infrastructure, endpoints, and the cloud, with annual security revenue exceeding $8 billion.

The future of cybersecurity

• The rise of AI and machine learning will play a crucial role in defense (and offense as well). Advanced threat detection will enable the identification and mitigation of sophisticated attacks, while attackers will use the same AI to automate tactics. This battle will only intensify as machines get smarter.

• Modern cloud applications, IoT, and remote workforces will force companies to think of replacing traditional perimeter defenses with zero-trust security, cloud-native security, or endpoint security. 

Quantum Computing 

No longer science fiction, quantum computing is entering its practical phase. Mere mortals, just like us, don’t know much about quantum computing; the industry already holds immense promise for materials science, drug discovery, and financial modeling. Early adopters promise to reshape entire industries.

Figures and statistics

• The global quantum computing market is projected to reach $6.5 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 23.5%.

• D-Wave's quantum computers operate at -460°F, just 0.02 degrees above absolute zero! That's colder than the surface of Pluto!

• Google Quantum AI leads the field with hardware like Sycamore and software platforms like Cirq, and it partners with companies like BMW and Pfizer.

Industry leaders 

• IONQ: Boasts a $4 billion market capitalization after entering the public arena as the first pure-play quantum computing company. 

• Tech giants: Names like Microsoft, Alphabet (owner of Google), Nvidia, and Intel are actively involved in the industry, with market capitalizations exceeding $1 trillion for Microsoft and Alphabet and significantly over $100 billion for Nvidia and Intel. 

• Established players: Legacy tech companies like Honeywell and IBM, with market capitalizations of $124 billion and $135 billion, respectively, are also making significant investments in quantum computing. 

The future of quantum computing

• In the future, quantum computing will evolve from a theoretical playground to a practical tool actively changing healthcare, fintech, and materials science. 

• Cloud-based access to quantum computers will democratize the technology, making its power accessible to startups and researchers.

Metaverse

While the metaverse's full potential remains undefined, its allure is undeniable. Step by step, it changes experiences in a digital environment with its virtual social spaces, like Decentraland, to augmented reality experiences. 

Figures and statistics

• The global metaverse market is projected to reach $507.8 billion by 2030, with an expected 2.66 million users.

• In 2023, metaverse startups raised over $13 billion in funding, highlighting investor confidence.

• Decentraland and Sandbox platforms are seeing surging user engagement, showcasing demand for immersive social experiences.

Industry players

• Meta (formerly Facebook): Leading VR hardware creator with Oculus Quest, investing heavily in Metaverse infrastructure and social platform Horizon Worlds.

• Microsoft: Developing Mesh for presence and shared reality experiences available from anywhere.

• Decentraland: Established virtual world platform with a huge user base and decentralized economy working on NFTs.

The future of Metaverse

• By 2030, many people may spend more time in the metaverse than in reality. Good or bad, people will exploit virtual capabilities more for work, education, and entertainment.

• Being not so valuable for daily life, Metaverse’s implementation will be limited to a certain group of people.

• Gaming and e-commerce will be the most affected segments, offering new experiences in the metaverse.

Sustainable tech

Sustainable economy, sustainable fashion, sustainable consumers. What’s next? Sustainable technology encompasses solutions like renewable energy, green AI, the circular economy, green transportation, and smart agriculture. 

Figures and statistics

• The global green tech market will reach $44.55 billion by 2028, signifying a massive growth trajectory.

• With the increasing popularity of online data centers, companies are willingly replacing their energy-sucking data centers and physical storage systems with cloud technology. 

• Solar energy installations continue to surge, with the International Energy Agency forecasting 10% annual growth over the next five years.

Industry players

• Tesla leads the electric vehicle revolution, inspiring other brands to develop electric models. At the same time, companies like First Solar and Vestas dominate the solar energy industry.

• AI giants like Google and Microsoft are developing green AI initiatives, and startups like Nauto use AI to optimize traffic flow and reduce emissions.

• Names like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are pioneering plant-based protein alternatives, disrupting the traditional meat industry.

The future of sustainable tech 

• Renewable energy will be on the rise with advancements in battery technology and energy storage.

• The integration of AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) will create smart ecosystems and optimize resource management across entire industries.

• More and more companies will implement sustainable practices, cutting back on using natural resources and recycling. 

Conclusion: What will the world be like?

If, in the next 100 years, nothing dramatic or fatal happens to the planet (which is, by the way, one very possible scenario, to my mind), our world will be either a better place or a total disaster. Standing on the threshold of a new phase with the power of AI, humanity can either use it in its favor or turn it into a weapon against itself. And even if my predictions seem pessimistic, it better be armed and ready than “die” in sweet delight. Either way, 2024 will be as turbulent as the past year, with technologies and innovations coming to make life “easier.” 

Author: Anush Bichakhchyan

Choosing Armenia for company registration has become a popular decision among foreign entrepreneurs due to the absence of nationality restrictions and minimum capital requirements. A residence permit isn’t necessary, either. 

Here, we cover 5 important legal points related to setting up a successful business in Armenia. 

Naming your business 

For state registration approval, submit a business name meeting legal criteria. Ensure uniqueness, avoiding resemblance to existing businesses to prevent confusion. The name must align with public interests, humanity principles, and morality.

The usage of the words “Arm,” “Armenia,” and “Armenian” and their translations in the name requires a permit and an annual state fee of 600,000 AMD. Application forms need to be filled in Armenian. The founders of legal entities and authorized persons can make the requests. 

Upon approval by the Intellectual Property Office, the name is documented in the State Register of Legal Entities. If rejected, you can submit a new request at no additional cost.

Choosing the legal type of your business 

There are different aspects to consider when deciding on the business structure of your entity: number of owners, tax burden, liability protection, paperwork, etc. 

In Armenia, company registration is free of charge, whereas the registration fee for a sole entrepreneur is 3,000 AMD.

Here are the types of businesses to consider. 

Limited Liability Company (LLC)

Small businesses often register as LLCs due to simple registration processes and limited personal liabilities related to the company’s debts and obligations.

In Armenia,  both individuals and legal entities, residents and foreigners, can apply to register an LLC. The number of participants in a company may not exceed 49.

Owners, directors, submit passports, and IDs. Foreign founders: provide notarized copies. Include company details - name, address, invested capital, and each founder's share.

The in-person process of submitting the documents to the relevant authority takes about 10-15 minutes, and the actual state registration of the company takes 1 business day.

Private Entrepreneurship

You can register as a sole proprietor (individual entrepreneur) in Armenia without forming a company. Here, one person owns and manages the business, taking personal responsibility for any liabilities. The registration is quick and easy, and once done, you'll receive a tax ID.

Joint-Stock Company – Open and Closed

This is a form of organization where investors or shareholders with a common purpose provide financing to the company. 

Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) is public, which means there is no limit on the number of shareholders. The entity is allowed to offer shares to the public through open subscriptions or the stock exchange.

A closed Joint-Stock Company (CJSC), on the other hand, is private, meaning company shares are not publicly listed. It can have no more than 49 shareholders. 

A Joint Stock Company can also be set up by one person. In this case, the person would be the sole shareholder, owning all the shares of the company.

Business Partnership 

A partnership involves two or more people. Two types exist: full partnership and limited partnership. In a full partnership, partners co-own the company, sharing equal decision rights. In a limited partnership, one is a general partner managing, while the other is limited, participating but not deciding.

Branches and Representative Offices 

Global companies operate in Armenia, and foreign ones can open branches or representative offices. These offices conduct business for the parent entity, but it's crucial to know they aren't seen as independent legal entities.

The difference between a branch and a representative office is that a branch may perform commercial activities, while a representative office has limited functions and can’t engage in profit-generating activities.

Paying Taxes

Tax matters in Armenia are overseen by the unified tax system. Companies face varied tax regulations based on their structure and specialties. Special tax regimes, government aid programs, and tax-free benefits are available for small companies, IT startups, and those in free economic zones. 

Entities with a permanent establishment (PE) are liable for corporate income tax (CIT), and for tax residents, their worldwide income is taxable. The standard CIT (Corporate Tax Rate) is 18, and VAT (Value Added Tax) is 20%. 

The tax system in Armenia is being reformed constantly to support businesses and ensure efficient economic growth. 

Business Licensing 

In Armenia, licensing activities are regulated by the Law on Licensing. Specific permits may be required for various sectors.

The list includes: 

• healthcare

• banking and finance 

• education 

• security 

• trade sector 

• energy 

Licenses can be issued through simple and compound procedures. A simple license shall be issued after three days upon submission of the application without the decision of the licensing commission. 

A compound license shall be issued after 30 days upon the application submission based on the conclusions of licensing commissions.

Employment Լegislation 

When hiring, grasp local employment laws in Armenia. The Labor Code governs work relations, and employers must furnish a written employment statement. Contracts adhere to labor laws, covering aspects like working hours, minimum wage, employee tax, health and safety policies, annual leave, and employer liability insurance. Contracts can be for a defined or indefinite period.

Foreign citizens in Armenia work under similar regulations on receipt of relevant visas and permits. 

● 70,236 attendees from 153 countries
● 43 percent of attendees are women, while 38 percent of speakers are women
● 2,608 startups exhibiting, almost one in three of which are woman founded
● 321 partners are taking to the exhibition floor
● More than 85 percent hotel occupancy expected across the city of Lisbon

70,236 attendees from 153 countries

Web Summit has brought 70,236 attendees from all over the world to the Altice Arena in Lisbon to discuss and debate ideas for the future. The cohort of CEOs, startups, investors, media, policymakers and creatives will be taking part in 1,180 investor to startup meetings, 70 masterclasses, 17 PITCH competitions rounds, 25 evening events, and Night Summit parties around the most exciting neighbourhoods of the city.

Web Summit has creatively expanded the total floor space of the event by five percent to approximately 215,000 square metres – the equivalent of 1,099 tennis courts.

Katherine Maher, CEO of Web Summit, took to the stage in front of a crowd of 11,000 people in the Altice Arena at the event’s Opening Night: “Over the last decade, as Web Summit has grown, we’ve brought together tens of thousands of people who have used this week in Lisbon as a springboard to do remarkable things – to launch companies, find investors, unveil projects, advance a vision of the world worth debating. As the new leader of this organisation of incredibly committed staff, and as a long time advocate for technology as a driving force for

good for humanity and society, Web Summit will continue to be the most important place to

bring together and connect people and advance critical conversations about technology,

society and innovation.”

2,608 startups from 93 countries

A record-breaking 2,608 startups from 93 countries will showcase their innovations and the businesses of tomorrow over the coming three days. These promising startups were chosen from thousands of applicants, and represent more than 30 different industries.

More than 250 startups will attend Web Summit as part of the Impact programme – startups that work to have a positive impact on their communities, industries and ecosystems.

More than 800 startups will learn from leaders and experts through nearly 100 Mentor Hours sessions. The industries most represented among startups include SaaS, AI and machine learning, healthtech and wellness, fintech and financial services, and sustainability and cleantech.

Stay tuned with us, our team is at Web Summit.

Have you encountered anyone who hasn’t used Google Maps during their travels? I haven’t come across such a person in the past decade, at least.

Google Maps is an online mapping service developed by Google. It helps people find locations, get directions, and explore places around the world. With real-time traffic information, public transit details, and street view imagery, it makes traveling and navigating easier for users. Whether you’re driving, walking, or using public transportation, Google Maps provides valuable assistance to help you reach your destination efficiently.

Google Maps for travelers

So how can Google Maps help tourists who need assistance finding locations, checking traffic, and knowing the prices of restaurants and cafes?

Google Maps’ real-time features are invaluable tools that significantly enhance the travel experience for users. These features provide up-to-date information and navigation assistance, making it easier for travelers to explore new places and navigate through unfamiliar territories.

Here are some common ways in which Google Maps’ real-time features help travelers:

Accurate Traffic Information

Google Maps uses real-time data to analyze traffic conditions on roads, highways, and streets. It provides live updates on traffic congestion, accidents, and construction, allowing travelers to choose the most efficient route to their destination. This feature is particularly useful for avoiding traffic jams and reducing travel time.

Public Transit Information

In cities with comprehensive public transportation systems, Google Maps displays real-time data on buses, trains, subways, and other transit options. When I was in Amsterdam recently, I used Google Maps many times a day to find my way around using buses, trains, and other public transportation. It was a huge help and made my trip much easier. Travelers in Google Maps can see the departure and arrival times, delays, and service changes, helping them plan their journeys efficiently.

Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA)

Google Maps calculates the estimated time of arrival based on real-time traffic conditions, vehicle speed, and distance. This feature enables travelers to have a better understanding of when they will reach their destination, aiding in time management and planning.

Explore Nearby Places

With real-time data, Google Maps can show travelers nearby attractions, restaurants, hotels, and other points of interest. Users can quickly discover options in their vicinity and make spontaneous decisions during their travels.

Live Location Sharing

Google Maps allows users to share their real-time location with friends and family. This feature is particularly useful for solo travelers who want to ensure loved ones can track their whereabouts and safety.

Weather Information

Google Maps provides weather forecasts for specific locations, giving travelers insights into the weather conditions at their destination or along their route. This helps travelers pack appropriately and plan outdoor activities accordingly.

Street View

Google Maps’ Street View feature offers 360-degree panoramic images of streets and landmarks, enabling travelers to virtually explore a destination before physically visiting it. This helps travelers get a sense of the area’s layout, architecture, and ambiance.

Local Business Information

Google Maps provides real-time information on local businesses, including their hours of operation, reviews, contact details, and popular times. This feature assists travelers in finding open establishments, reading reviews, and choosing the best places to visit.

Offline Maps

While real-time features primarily require an internet connection, Google Maps also allows users to download offline maps. This is particularly beneficial for travelers who might encounter limited connectivity during their journeys, ensuring they can still access essential map data and navigate offline.

Overall, Google Maps’ real-time features have become indispensable tools for travelers worldwide, offering convenience, efficiency, and reliability throughout their journeys. Google Maps is a popular tool that can be a modern tourist’s best friend. It can save you from using lots of other websites and apps to get information while you travel.

This article was originally published on EuroDirections.

The most attractive points of investing in the Armenian sun and getting the most of the benefits of solar energy in Armenia. We’ve researched and analyzed all the ultimate assets for showing the top benefits of investing in solar energy in Armenia.\

In fact, in 2022, the number of established solar power stations exceeded previous years dramatically; it promises a burst of sunshine and a brighter future for generations to come. Additionally, it provides the strength to face climate change challenges thanks to harnessing world solar energy.

It is worth mentioning that according to the 2021 Global Energy Review published by the International Energy Agency, 29% of global electric power was generated from renewable energy in 2020. In the U.S. alone, solar energy generation is the most rapidly evolving power origin, with 3.3% of overall generation by the end of 2020.

In this article, we’ll discuss the potential of Armenia’s energy, how much space Armenia has for solar power stations, and the benefits of investing in solar energy in Armenia.

Rise of the Global Sector of Solar Energy in Armenia

Even in rather foggy and dull weather, being the ultimate source of power makes the sun the endless life generator. In this regard, where would solar energy be used better than in Armenia? The country of the sun itself.

In Armenia, the goal to build an observant development, particularly in the size of the solar photovoltaic (PV) system, is the real serious focus, and the progress made so far in this regard is remarkable. Several Armenian official bodies have realized the sun is becoming the main energy supplier worldwide and have started acting accordingly.

Armenia’s strategy for energy generation in 2021 requires up to 1000 MW of solar PV capacity by the end of 2030. By then, solar energy stations will reach 15% of the overall generation, according to the International Energy Agency report about Armenia this year.

The sun has been a leading role player in many Armenian poems, paintings, musical shows, and even popular modern songs, from Betty’s people of the sun in 2014 to Sirusho’s Huh-Hah bragging about being from the city of the sun. Not just that, but even the name “Arev” is popular among Armenian females; therefore, the sun is part of Armenia’s culture, not just the natural atmosphere.

The Potential of Armenia’s Solar Energy

Being a small country in the Caucasus can’t stop Armenia from becoming a role model in solar energy investments. In fact, Armenians can leverage their country’s geographical location and natural resources to shift gradually to solar energy solutions. Who knows, maybe the Armenian sun could be a national treasure no one has thought of in the past!

We are at a point in history, as a collective, where awareness worldwide is rapidly increasing regarding environmental issues and saving the planet’s natural resources. More than ever, Armenia has the biggest opportunity to shine brightly through utilizing the ever-evolving technologies and promoting the important contributions this land can offer to the world.

The Armenian diaspora distinguishes Armenia from other countries, which can contribute significantly to implementing energy efficiency projects and solar power production through private and non-profit international organizations. 

Several Armenian governmental bodies have shown openness to such collaborations and participated efficiently by investing heavily to guarantee the success of clean energy approaches, for example, the energy efficiency transformation projects funded by UNDP, GCF, and the Armenian government.

What Makes Armenia Suitable for Establishing Solar Power Plants?

Supportive Government Strategy

The Armenian government has prioritized utilizing renewable energy resources for their availability, particularly the building of solar power stations. Believing in the saying: “Solar Energy is Today’s Resource for a Brighter Tomorrow!” The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Fund were established by the Armenian government as an independent NGO in 2006. It functions to facilitate investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy in Armenia. 

Domestic Demand for Solar-Powered Solutions is High

The sun doesn’t charge for energy, and Armenia has a high demand for solar-powered water heating solutions; therefore, many institutions, hospitals, residential buildings, and others have switched traditional water heating systems to solar-powered ones.

Such demand alerts for a cultural change where people are becoming aware of what differences solar energy can bring to their lives. As a result, it increases market demand and encourages business entities to participate in the process.

How Much Space Does Armenia Have for Solar Power Stations?

Shortly speaking, Armenia has lots of potential spaces for solar power stations.

For example, Lake Sevan, located at 1900 m above sea level, is where the biggest solar power station has been constructed nearby. It generates electricity for the whole region with 14,000 solar panels.

Additionally, a mega solar energy project was finalized in 2021 between the Armenian government and Masdar, a UAE-based renewable energy company,  to establish a 200-megawatt plant in the Aragatsotn province in an area of over 500 hectares.

Another example is Gladzor, a village in Vayots Dzor province in Armenia, where the European Union announced plans in 2019 to build a solar power station with 4000 solar panels.

The Ministry of Energy Infrastructure and Natural Resources of The Republic of Armenia provides clear guidelines for establishing a utility-scale solar power plant, from choosing the land to implementation and operation, including free professional consultation.

he sun doesn’t charge for energy, and Armenia has a high demand for solar-powered water heating solutions; therefore, many institutions, hospitals, residential buildings, and others have switched traditional water heating systems to solar-powered ones.

Benefits of Investing in Solar Energy in Armenia 

Armenia never falls short with its unique location and the power it can generate from the sun’s warmth. It certainly lacks nothing to be the best place to invest in solar energy. Actually, the leading reason to invest in solar energy in the land of rocks, as it is famously known, is due to its mountainous nature and an average of 2700 sunny hours throughout the year.

The promise for Armenia that one day it will shift totally to renewable energy sources is around the corner; of course, the procedure to reach that will take some time, but the hopes are high with the combined efforts and the government plans toward more collaborations, programs on the one hand, and the maximum use of modern technology such as photovoltaics, solar heating, algorithms, and constructing more solar power plants, on the other hand.

Despite all the recent geopolitical issues and all the ups and downs Armenia has been through during the last decade, the country still has lots of potential in terms of solar energy and innovative solutions. Maybe solar power could be Armenia’s window into the world. All it takes is applying current solutions and putting all possible effort into developing innovations.

Article source

In 2000 On December 28, the Government of the Republic of Armenia recognized the information technology industry as a priority sector of economic development.

in 2021 there was a 17.8% real increase in output in the field of information technologies, which is more than 3 times higher than the total economic activity of the year. This is mentioned in the 2021 report of the Republic of Armenia Government.

According to the report, within the framework of the 17th measure to neutralize the economic consequences of the coronavirus, in 2021, newly established technology companies were provided with state assistance in the form of grants of about 1 billion drams. In addition, about 429 million AMD grants were provided to 40 startups at different stages of product development within the framework of the 3 components of the “From Idea to Business” grant program.

2021 was full of offline and online events, meetups, new educational programs, active investments, and more. It can be considered a year of investments in Armenian IT.  Many startups with Armenian founders and offices here have announced venture investments. For example Krisp, SoloLearn, SuperAnnotate, 10Web,  Podcastle, FoodStruck, Cognize, etc. There are also many Armenian startups that are still growing and great developments await them in the future.

Also, last year PicsArt became a Unicorn. This is the first company established in Armenia, the value of which exceeds $ 1 billion. There are many companies that have not announced the closing of investment rounds.

Competitive advantages of Armenia

Armenia has competitive advantages over other countries in the region in this field:

• The ability to carry out research and experimental work in accordance with international standards;

• High-quality and talented specialists,

• Basic university programs in IT and other related specialties, and cheap labor force with a high level of competition and also low operating costs,

• Tangible state support to the sector and willingness to improve the investment field,

• Progressive development of the IT sector,

• Strong Diaspora in Europe and North America;

• Extensive experience in cooperation with large transnational companies,

• A legal framework that meets the best international standards for the protection of intellectual property.

The above-mentioned advantages have become the basis for relocation to Armenia. The flow of Russian citizens to Armenia started on February 24, 2022.

Over the past couple of months, 100,000+ accounts opened in Armenian banks for non-residents, according to the Internet Without Borders platform.

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