List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

By Stephen Nellis and Chavi Mehta (Reuters) -Chip designer Qualcomm forecast first-quarter sales and profits above Wall Street targets on

Disney has launched a new, cheaper subscription of its streaming service, with ads. The company will let subscribers pay £4.99 for the service if they are willing to have advertising injected at the start of films and inside TV shows. The advertising will be limited and users will see how long those ads are going to last, the company. Disney is just the latest in a range of subscription services, such as Netflix, to launch a cheaper version of the streaming service that is supported by advertising. The changes come amid a cost of living crisis and increasing competition for TV streaming subscriptions. As well as seeing ads, users on the new cheaper tier will be limited to watching two streams at once on one subscription, and will not be able to download offline. Netflix launched its ad-supported tier with similar limits, though it has restricted them somewhat in the time since. On Disney+, the more expensive ad-free tiers include the standard package at £7.99, or £79.90 annually, which has the same video and audio quality as the lower level but allows for downloads on up to 10 devices, while the premium model at £10.99, or £109.90, has improved video and audio quality and allows four devices to watch concurrently. The streaming giant has a host of series including The Bear, Elemental, and Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story. It also launched the new series following the Kardashian-Jenner family last year, titled The Kardashians, which follows on from its predecessor, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, in documenting the personal lives and business ventures of the siblings. General manager of Disney+ Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Luke Bradley Jones, said: “Today’s launch represents a significant milestone for Disney+ in the UK, offering customers the flexibility to select a plan that suits their needs and budget. “All of our customers can enjoy a wide range collection of award-winning original TV series and blockbuster movies, including FX’s The Bear, Elemental, and Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, along with fan favourites like Season 2 of Marvel Studios’ Loki and the latest series of The Simpsons and Grey’s Anatomy.” Deborah Armstrong, country manager of the UK and Ireland for GM Media Networks and advertising EMEA, said: “Disney+ offers advertisers a prime opportunity to join our premium streaming platform, featuring our beloved brands and an exceptional line-up of movies and TV series. “The response from our clients and agencies has been overwhelmingly positive, firmly showcasing the quality of our content and the strong bond our brands share with audiences worldwide. “We’re partnering with a fantastic range of brands in all markets right from day one.” Additional reporting by agencies

By Andrew MacAskill and Martin Coulter LONDON (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday called for urgent action to

By Samrhitha A (Reuters) -Shares of Advanced Micro Devices jumped 8% on Wednesday, after an upbeat AI chip sales forecast

LONDON Apple Inc on Wednesday lost a bid to block a mass London lawsuit accusing it of hiding

In the 1840s, Ada Lovelace wrote the world’s first machine algorithm for an early computer that existed only on paper.

By Gwladys Fouche OSLO The European data regulator has agreed to extend a ban on "behavioural advertising" on

Frankenstein’s monsters aren’t just for Halloween, as a team of US scientists have recently discovered. The experts at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) were tasked with analysing the remains of a supposed mummified “mermaid”, and what they found was pretty gruesome. The mummy was brought to America from Japan more than 100 years ago after being donated it to the Clark County Historical Society in Springfield, Ohio. It arrived at the society in 1906 but documents supplied alongside the strange specimen suggest it dates back to the mid-1800s. This means that for some 170 years, the true identity of the wisened, 29-cm-long creature remained a mystery. However, thanks to modern technology, the team at NKU has finally worked out that the sinister-looking “siren” is, in fact, a ghoulish hybrid of monkey, fish and lizard. Joseph Cress, who led the project, told Live Science that he and his colleagues used X-ray and CT scans to investigate the creepy cadaver. "This allowed us to see [the mummy] in almost every dimension in the hopes to see what was inside it," he explained. They determined that that the “mermaid” consists of the head and torso of a monkey sewed onto the body of a fish, and its “hands” are the clawed legs of a lizard – most likely a Komodo dragon. The scans also revealed a pair of wooden stakes hidden inside the chimeric corpse – one running from head to tail and another across the shoulder blades — which were presumably inserted to keep the monster in one piece. Cress and his colleagues are currently trying to reconstruct a more detailed model of the mermaid and its individual components, according to Live Science. Once these models are complete, they plan to send them to zoos and aquariums to help confirm the different parts on a species level. However, jaw-dropping this specimen may be, it's not the only “mermaid” to be debunked in recent times. In March 2022, researchers analysed a similar example that was found in a hidden box in a Japanese temple. They also expected the creature, which was 30.5 cm long and dated back to the mid-1700s, to be a monkey-fish hybrid. However, tests conducted in February this year revealed that it was, in fact, predominantly made of cloth, paper and cotton. It had been painted with sand and charcoal and held together by metal pins, while various animal parts, including fish skin and mammal hair, had been stuck to it. Experts believe that the two “mermaids” were made to resemble "ningyo" — hideous fish-like creatures with human heads and sharp claws from Japanese mythology. According to legend, a nun named Yaobikuni lived for 800 years and retained the youthful appearance of a young woman, after eating a ningyo. Her immortality made the creatures a symbol of longevity, so it’s likely that fraudsters tried to recreate the mermaids to sell them to wealthy seekers of immortality. Still, at least the owners of these two examples didn’t make the mistake of trying to eat them. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

The U.S. House of Representatives' China committee will introduce a bill to ban the U.S. government from buying

Most global mega-cap stocks continued their slide in October, hit by the rise in U.S. interest rates and

By Paul Sandle and Martin Coulter BLETCHLEY PARK, England (Reuters) -Britain will convene governments, academia and companies working at the

BEIJING Chinese search engine giant Baidu launched on Wednesday a paid version of its ChatGPT-like product Ernie bot,