Video podcasts become next streaming battleground
Big tech platforms, including TikTok and Netflix, are all looking to add video podcasts to their content, a rapidly growing format that attracts a young audience prized by advertisers and where YouTube dominates. Roman Wasenmüller, the head of podcasts at Spotify, said that the development “marks a new chapter for podcasting,” as he announced a […]
Musk’s Grokipedia leans on ‘questionable’ sources, study says
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia carries thousands of citations to “questionable” and “problematic” sources, US researchers said Friday, raising doubts about the reliability of the AI-powered encyclopedia as an information tool. Musk’s company xAI launched Grokipedia last month to compete with Wikipedia — a crowdsourced information repository authored by humans that the billionaire and others on the […]
Amazon, Microsoft cloud services could face tougher EU rules
Amazon and Microsoft cloud services could face stricter EU competition rules as Brussels probes their market power, the bloc’s tech chief said Tuesday. Twin investigations aim to assess whether the tech giants “should be designated as the gatekeepers on cloud computing,” Henna Virkkunen said at a summit in Berlin focused on the push for greater […]
Trump says firebrand ally Greene has ‘lost her way’ after criticism
It used to be a political match made in MAGA heaven. But US President Donald Trump fell out with hard-right lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday, saying she had “lost her way” after a series of critical comments. The firebrand Republican congresswoman from Georgia was previously a diehard pro-Trump supporter but has emerged as an […]
New data reveals the world’s leading economies by ‘real GDP’ in 2025
The International Monetary Fund has just warned of slowing global economic growth in its latest analysis. Similar to this finding, a newly issued report reveals the world’s wealthiest countries by real gross domestic product in 2025. To evaluate how countries rank in real economic terms, researchers at BestBrokers calculated Real GDP figures for 135 countries, based on IMF data covering the […]
German neo-Nazi rappers push hate speech, disinfo on TikTok
Far-right German-language rappers are flouting hate speech rules by spreading extremist rhetoric and disinformation on platforms such as TikTok, an AFP investigation found. In one video, a rapper named MaKss Damage cited the war in Gaza and suggested Adolf Hitler was right to warn of destruction caused by Jews, with the artist’s face morphing into […]
Meta and TikTok to obey Australia under-16 social media ban
Tech giants Meta and TikTok said Tuesday they will obey Australia’s under-16 social media ban but warned the landmark laws could prove difficult to enforce. Australia will from December 10 force social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to remove users under the age of 16. There is keen interest in whether Australia’s […]
Asian markets swing as trades eye tech rally, US rate outlook
Asian markets fluctuated Tuesday as investors assessed the latest tech rally on Wall Street amid worries a bubble is forming in the sector, while mixed signals from Federal Reserve officials fed uncertainty over its next interest rate move. A flood of multi-billion-dollar investment into artificial intelligence has been a key driver of the surge in […]
Spain’s Telefonica shares drop on dividend cut, net loss
Shares in Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica fell sharply on Tuesday after it posted a net loss for the first nine months of the year and announced it would cut its dividend by half in 2026. The company booked a net loss of 1.08 billion euros ($1.2 billion) between January and September, compared with a profit […]
BP profit surges despite lower oil prices
British energy giant BP on Tuesday reported a sharp rise in net profit for the third quarter as higher oil output and cost-cutting helped offset a drop in crude prices. Profit after tax jumped to $1.16 billion for the July-September period, compared with $206 million in the third quarter of 2024, BP said in an […]