Facebook has released a new chatbot named Blender, which the company claims is designed to handle conversation on any topic and also to show empathy when interacting with humans. The name ‘Blender’ has been aptly used to define its capabilities of merging several conversational skills at once. The chatbot is developed from what Facebook calls […]
Covid-19
By CATHY BUSSEWITZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Uber lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter as its overseas investments were hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, but the company is looking to its growing food delivery business and aggressive cost-cutting to ease the pain. The ride-hailing giant said Thursday it is offloading Jump, its […]
By SHEIKH SAALIQ Associated Press NEW DELHI (AP) — As India enters an extended coronavirus lockdown, the government is actively pursuing contact tracing to help control infections. At the heart of the effort in the country of 1.3 billion people is a smartphone app that evaluates users’ infection risk based on location services such as […]
The Lockdown has forced a lot of organisations to contemplate on the degree of human and business transformation we might see after many people have spent weeks working in isolation. Will they come out of this blinking in the summer sunlight or, more likely, will they see a future work-at-home component as more increasingly inevitable […]
By CATHY BUSSEWITZ AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — In a world where the coronavirus pandemic has turned social distancing into a new way of life, companies whose business models bank on people’s willingness to share their personal space are now struggling. Uber said Wednesday it’s cutting 3,700 full-time workers, or about 14% of […]
By DEE-ANN DURBIN AP Business Writer Airbnb says it is laying off 25% of its workforce as it confronts a steep decline in global travel due to the new coronavirus pandemic. It’s a serious setback for the 12-year-old home-sharing company, which just a few months ago was valued at $31 billion and planning a hotly […]
By MATT O’BRIEN and CHRISTINA LARSON Associated Press As governments around the world consider how to monitor new coronavirus outbreaks while reopening their societies, many are starting to bet on smartphone apps to help stanch the pandemic. But their decisions on which technologies to use — and how far those allow authorities to peer into […]
Cities around the world are usually enveloped in pollution however, not right now. One of the few silver linings of the current Covid-19 pandemic especially for city dwellers worldwide, has been the improvement in the environment. Carbon emissions are set to decline by almost 8%, with a rising demand for renewable energy. According to the […]
Since the outbreak of Covid-19, new applications have been developed all over the world, to help slow the course of coronavirus. The contact-tracing app is one way to achieve this goal. First trials are underway in several countries, including Britain. Council and healthcare workers in the Isle of Wight will be the first to try […]
By JOSEPH PISANI AP Retail Writer NEW YORK (AP) — An Amazon executive said he quit his job at the online-retail giant to protest the firing of employees who spoke up about the conditions inside the company’s warehouses and its record on climate change. Tim Bray, a vice president at the company, wrote in a […]