Tech
Is there life on Mars? Maybe, and it could have dropped its teddy
Yogi, Paddington and Winnie the Pooh, move over. There’s a new bear in town. Or on Mars, anyway.
The beaming face of a cute-looking teddy bear appears to have been carved into the surface of our nearest planetary neighbour, waiting for a passing satellite to discover it.
And when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over last month, carrying aboard the most powerful camera ever to venture into the Solar System, that’s exactly what happened.
Scientists operating the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), which has been circling Mars since 2006, crunched the data that made it back to Earth and have now published a picture of the face.
“There’s a hill with a V-shaped collapse structure (the nose), two craters (the eyes), and a circular fracture pattern (the head),” said scientists at the University of Arizona, which operates the kit.
Each one of the features in the 2,000-metre (1.25-mile)-wide face has a possible explanation that hints at just how active the surface of the planet is.
“The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater,” the scientists said.
“Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows?”
HiRISE, one of six instruments aboard the Orbiter, snaps super-detailed pictures of the Red Planet helping to map the surface for possible future missions, either by humans or robots.
Over the last ten years, the team has managed to capture images of avalanches as they happened, and discovered dark flows that could be some kind of liquid.
They’ve also found dust devils twirling across the Martian surface, as well as a feature that some people thought looked a lot like “Star Trek’s” Starfleet logo.
One thing they have not found, however, is the little green men who were once popularly believed to inhabit the planet.
OpenAI and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank (9984.T) will each commit $19 billion to fund Stargate, a joint venture to develop data centers for artificial intelligence in the U.S., the Information reported on Wednesday.
The ChatGPT maker will hold a 40% interest in Stargate, and would act as an extension of OpenAI, the report said, citing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaking to colleagues. His comments imply SoftBank would also have a 40% interest, the report added.
OpenAI and SoftBank did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that OpenAI, SoftBank Group and Oracle (ORCL.N) will unveil Stargate and invest $500 billion over the next four years to help the United States stay ahead of China and other rivals in the global AI race.
Stargate will initially deploy $100 billion and the rest of the funding is expected over the next four years. The project is being led by SoftBank and OpenAI.
Taiwan’s HTC (2498.TW) said on Thursday it will sell part of its unit for extended reality (XR) headsets and glasses to Google (GOOGL.O) for $250 million and transfer some of its employees to the U.S. company.
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of this year, HTC said.
The two companies will also explore further collaboration opportunities, HTC added.
Google said in a separate statement that the deal will accelerate the development of the Android XR platform and strengthen the ecosystem for headsets and glasses.
Lu Chia-te, HTC vice president and general counsel, told reporters the company had granted its intellectual property rights to Google as a non-exclusive license.
“Therefore, this is not a buyout nor an exclusive licence. In the future, HTC will still retain the ability to use, utilise, and even further develop it without any restrictions,” he said.
Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) LinkedIn has been sued by Premium customers who said the business-focused social media platform disclosed their private messages to third parties without permission to train generative artificial intelligence models.
According to a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night on behalf of millions of LinkedIn Premium customers, LinkedIn quietly introduced a privacy setting last August that let users enable or disable the sharing of their personal data.
Customers said LinkedIn then discreetly updated its privacy policy on Sept. 18 to say data could be used to train AI models, and in a “frequently asked questions” hyperlink said opting out “does not affect training that has already taken place.”
This attempt to “cover its tracks” suggests LinkedIn was fully aware it violated customers’ privacy and its promise to use personal data only to support and improve its platform, in order to minimize public scrutiny and legal fallout, the complaint said.
The lawsuit was filed in the San Jose, California, federal court on behalf of LinkedIn Premium customers who sent or received InMail messages, and whose private information was disclosed to third parties for AI training before Sept. 18.
It seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract and violations of California’s unfair competition law, and $1,000 per person for violations of the federal Stored Communications Act.
A lawyer for Prince Harry on Wednesday said the Duke of Sussex had reached a settlement with Rupert Murdoch’s news conglomerate.
LinkedIn said in a statement: “These are false claims with no merit.”
A lawyer for the plaintiffs had no immediate additional comment.
The lawsuit was filed several hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a joint venture among Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Oracle (ORCL.N) and SoftBank (9984.T), with a potential $500 billion of investment, to build AI infrastructure in the United States.
OpenAI, SoftBank each commit 19bn dollars to Stargate AI data center
Taiwan’s HTC to sell part of XR unit to Google for 250mn dollars
Microsoft’s LinkedIn sued for disclosing customer information to train AI models
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