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Oracle to invest $1.5bn in Saudi Arabia, open data centre in Riyadh

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Oracle to invest $1.5bn in Saudi Arabia, open data centre in Riyadh

Oracle Corp plans to invest $1.5 billion in Saudi Arabia in the coming years as it builds up its cloud footprint in the kingdom and opens its third public cloud region in Riyadh, a company official said.

Increased demand for cloud computing has pushed technology companies such as Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet’s Google to set up data centres across the world to speed up data transfer.

Saudi officials have pressed international companies to invest in the kingdom and move their regional headquarters to Riyadh in order to benefit from government contracts.

“We are finalising the plans for opening the Riyadh region. We are still working with our suppliers before we can announce the actual date,” Nick Redshaw, a senior vice president at Oracle, said in an interview from Dubai.

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Redshaw said the investment will be made over several years without providing detail. He added that Oracle would also expand the capacity of its cloud region in Jeddah, which the company first opened in 2020.

The company made the announcement as global tech companies gathered for a major tech conference in the Saudi capital.

Though Oracle lags its bigger rivals in the race to corner the cloud computing market, it was among the first large tech companies to open a data centre in Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom has been devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to an economic transformation, known as Vision 2030, led by its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

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But it has struggled to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), one of the pillars of Vision 2030, which aims at diversifying the economy away from oil.

FDI reached just under $4.1 billion in the first half of 2022, a fraction of the ambitious $100 billion target set for the end of this decade.

While Oracle has been working with the government, Saudi Arabia has been trying to encourage foreign firms to set up headquarters in the country or risk losing out on government contracts and has given them until the end of 2023 to comply.

“We are working closely with the Saudi government to finalise plans for that regional headquarter requirement and we will announce them as we finalise that with them,” Redshaw said.

Oracle has also won contracts from the crown prince’s $500 billion flagship NEOM project, a futuristic mega city and economic zone which the crown prince is building on the Red Sea coast.

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WhatsApp to launch file sharing feature without internet

WhatsApp to launch file sharing feature without internet

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WhatsApp to launch file sharing feature without internet

The messaging app WhatsApp, owned by Meta, is working on a cool new feature to make it easier to share files even when you’re not connected to the internet.

Recent leaks say that pretty soon, you’ll be able to share photos, videos, music, and documents offline.

This new feature is all about letting you share different kinds of files without needing Wi-Fi or data. And don’t worry about security – the files you share will be encrypted, which means they’ll be safe from anyone trying to mess with them.

Screenshots that got leaked from the latest test version of WhatsApp for Android show us what kind of permissions this feature will need. One important thing is that it’ll be able to find other phones nearby that also have this offline file-sharing thing.

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For this to work on Android phones, WhatsApp needs a permission that lets it look for other devices using Bluetooth. But if you’re not comfortable with that, you can always turn it off.

Before this, WhatsApp added a feature that lets you pin notes to keep them handy. So, looks like WhatsApp is always coming up with cool stuff to make chatting even better!

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Flame-throwing robotic dog unleashed for sale in US

Flame-throwing robotic dog unleashed for sale in US

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Flame-throwing robotic dog unleashed for sale in US

A flame-throwing robotic dog is now available for sale in the US, thanks to an Ohio-based company.

Throwflame first released the contraption last year but recently announced it was back in stock, asking for $9,420 a piece.

The company released a promotional video showing the ARC Flamethrower and saying it can “send streams of fire up to 30 feet with the push of a button.”

The flamethrower is attached to a Go2 Robot Dog manufactured by the China-based Unitree.

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Throwflame said on its website the flamethrowers are legal to own and are “federally unregulated,” but are “not even considered a firearm (ironic) by the federal authorities.”

The company released its first flamethrowers in 2015, called the X15, which could send “a stream of flaming fuel or napalm up to 50 feet.”

That prompted a huge media response, questioning its legality. But Throwflame said the device remains “completely unrestricted in 48 states.”

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US military stage world’s first ever AI controlled warplane

US military stage world’s first ever AI controlled warplane

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US military stage world's first ever AI controlled warplane

The United States has finally started to seek answers to one of the most asked questions on the planet – who wins between man and machine?

Incredible details have emerged of the world’s first ever AI controlled warplane taking on a human piloted jet in a historic dogfight that saw both aircraft blasting through the sky at speeds of 1,200mph.

The insane test saw an AI powered modified F-16 – dubbed the X-62A – take on the same jet but with a human in the cockpit.

Both powerful jets went “nose-to-nose” as they battled 2,000ft up in the air, say officials.

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The tests were conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) alongside the US Air Force to learn about just how advanced artificial intelligence really is.

Results of the intense air battles have been kept tightly under wraps but they were done to show how safe and effective autonomous fighter jets could be.

Officials were also intrigued to see how close AI powered military jets are to operating safely in a complex war environment.

In the end, 21 test flights were done for the project taking place between December 2022 and September 2023.

Lt. Col. Maryann Karlen, deputy commandant of the test pilot school, explained how it all worked in a fascinating video on the historic dogfight.

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They said: “In September we actually took the X-62 and flew it against a live manned F-16.

“We built up in safety using the manoeuvres – first defensive, then offensive, then high aspect nose-to-nose engagements where we got as close as 2,000 feet at 1,200 miles per hour.”

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