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The Greek alphabet might be centuries older than once thought, according to a statement released by the University of Leiden. Scholars theorize that the script emerged around the eighth century b.c., after the ancient Greeks adapted the older Phoenician alphabet -- which was composed of only consonants and no vowels -- to fit their own needs. This period in Greek history was the purported time of the poet Homer, who composed the Iliad and the Odyssey. However, University of Leiden classicist Willemijn Waal has recently suggested the Greek written language appears on pottery earlier than that, and likely dates back...

As noted a few months ago, Mozilla -- maker of the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client -- is facing an 80% revenue drop due to investigations into its “revenue-sharing” deals with Google. That revenue drop is apparently prompting Mozilla's all-out search for alternate revenue streams. Mozilla's changes last week to the Firefox browser's privacy notice and usage terms indicate that users' privacy may be sold out. Specifically, Mozilla's new use terms provide: “When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and...

Apple (AAPL) announced Monday that it will spend and invest more than $500 billion in the US over the next four years, including plans to build a new manufacturing factory, double its advanced manufacturing fund, and hire 20,000 people. "We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we're proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. "From doubling our Advanced Manufacturing Fund, to building advanced technology in Texas, we’re thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing. And we’ll keep working...

Google-parent Alphabet and Apple must be ready to remove TikTok from their U.S. app stores on January 19, two US lawmakers said in a letter to the companies’ CEOs Friday. The bipartisan letter came from two leaders of the US House of Representatives’ committee on China: Republican Representative John Moolenaar, who is the committee’s chair, and the group’s top Democrat Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi. Last week, a U.S. federal appeals court upheld a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok in the United States or face a ban. The app is used by 170 million Americans. Separately, Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi also...

The breakthrough — achieving this "below threshold" milestone — means that errors in a quantum computer will reduce exponentially as you add more physical qubits. It charts a path for scaling up quantum machines in the future. The technology relies on logical qubits. This is a qubit encoded using a collection of physical qubits in a lattice formation. All the physical qubits in a single logical qubit share the same data, meaning if any qubits fail, calculations continue because the information can still be found within the logical qubit.

For decades, it's been a common belief that the Ancient Egyptians were responsible for the very first alphabet. Now, a shocking finding challenges this assumption, pushing back the age of the first known alphabetic writing by about 500 years. ... The finger-length cylinders were found at Tell Umm-el Marra, a former city located in today's northwestern Syria, once a bustling crossroads for two trade routes. Carbon dating techniques reveal that the objects date back 4,400 years to 2400 BC – preceding any other known alphabetic scripts by roughly 500 years. ... However, the academic admits he 'can only speculate' exactly...

Alphabet shares shot up Friday morning after the company posted better-than-expected first-quarter results and approved its first-ever dividend. Alphabet shares shot up 10% Friday morning after the company posted better-than-expected first-quarter results and greenlit its first-ever dividend and a $70 billion buyback. The company on Thursday reported revenue of $80.54 billion, a 15% increase from a year earlier and the fastest growth rate since early 2022, surpassing the $78.59 billion in sales expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Earnings of $1.89 per share eclipsed the $1.51 in earnings per share expected by Wall Street.

Let me start by telling you that I am perhaps unrivaled in my disgust for Google, parent company Alphabet, feckless CEO Sundar Pichai, and every single one of the company's products and services. I've gone so far as to switch to a paid search engine — Kagi — as part of my endless quest to remove myself forever from Google's revenue stream yet remain an internet user. .... Google's Gemini team went to extra-special lengths to make the image generator as Woke as humanly possible, doing everything within their digital powers to lecture users, scold users, to erase white people...

Users slammed Google’s artificial intelligence tool, known as Gemini, as “woke” after it refused to show images of white people and created historically inaccurate images in the name of diversity. In response to the issue, Google announced the company is pausing the Gemini artificial intelligence image generation feature. According to The New York Post, some examples of the artificial intelligence tool’s inaccurate creations when asked to generate images included a black man representing George Washington and an Asian woman dressed as the pope. The Verge reported another example of Google’s inaccurate artificial intelligence tool was discovered when it generated Asian...

The 19-year-old son of former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki was found deceased at the University of California, Berkeley, on Tuesday. His grandmother, Esther Wojcicki, confirmed the devastating news in a Facebook post. The student, identified as Marco Troper, was discovered unresponsive in his dorm at the Clark Kerr Campus, a student housing complex, around 4:23 p.m. local time. Despite immediate life-saving attempts by the Berkeley Fire Department, Troper was pronounced dead at the scene. The University of California Police Department (UCPD) stated that there were no signs of foul play discovered, according to the New York Post. The heartbroken grandmother...

THE SCOOP Google is laying off hundreds of people working on its voice-activated Google Assistant software and eliminating a similar number of roles on its knowledge and information product teams, a Google spokesperson confirmed to Semafor on Wednesday. Google told Semafor the restructuring would help improve Google Assistant as it explores integrating newer artificial intelligence technology into its products. The company announced in October that it was using its generative AI chatbot Bard to build a new version of Google Assistant that “extends beyond voice, understands and adapts to you and handles personal tasks in new ways.” Google has been...

Google confirmed it will lay off hundreds of staff members who helped recruit and hire employees, as Silicon Valley continues its cost-cutting efforts. The latest cuts come after Google parent Alphabet in January eliminated 12,000 jobs, or about 6% of its workforce, across the company as it grappled with economic uncertainty that hit the company’s bottom line last year, especially its core advertising business. During Google’s July earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company was continuing to slow its “expense growth and pace of hiring.” “We continue to invest in top engineering and technical talent while also meaningfully slowing...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in mid-July that some Muslims’ opposition to LGBTQ curriculum in K-12 education is being fueled by American right-wingers, video shows. Just when you thought Trudeau couldn’t offend any more people, or do something even stupider than that haircut he got in 2022, he outdid his own stupidity in spectacular fashion. While speaking with Muslim Canadians at a mosque in Calgary in mid-July, he seemingly lectured his constituents on why they feel the way they do about Pride events in the education system, according to a video shared on social media. “People on social media,...

Government investigators are reporting that Google co-founder Larry Page has disappeared after a subpoena was issued for his testimony in a Jeffrey Epstein underage trafficking case. Authorities in the U.S. Virgin Islands issued subpoenas against Page and Google parent company Alphabet in the lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase & Co. bank. The lawsuit accuses JPMorgan, America’s largest bank, of playing a role in Epstein’s international child sex trafficking operation. However, a new legal filing reveals that investigators have been unable to locate Page since the subpoena was issued. Authorities have now been forced to ask Judge Jed Rakoff, who is overseeing...

The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), has sent subpoenas to five prominent U.S. Big Tech executives, demanding information on their censorship practices. “Today, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed the chief executive officers of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft for documents and communications relating to the federal government’s reported collusion with Big Tech to suppress free speech,” the committee announced in a statement Wednesday.

More Google employees will be at risk for low performance ratings and fewer are expected to reach high marks under a new performance review system that starts next year, according to internal communications obtained by CNBC. In a recent Google all-hands meeting and in a separate presentation last week, executives presented more details of its new performance review process. Under the new system, Google estimates 6% of full-time employees will fall into a low-ranking category that puts them at higher risk for corrective action, versus 2% before. Simultaneously, it will be harder to achieve high marks: Google projects 22% percent...

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, suffered a 27% drop in third-quarter net profit, as search engine ad sales failed to meet projections. Alphabet also recorded a double-digit percent decline in net income, through the first nine months of the year, The Epoch Times reported Wednesday […] “Alphabet missed Wall Street’s target for revenue growth in the third quarter as ad sales remained weak,” The New York Times reported Tuesday, noting that the company’s weak search ad sales for the quarter of $39.5 billion failed to hit the $41 billion level analysts expected. As a result, at least 21 analysts cut their...

Google is planning to offer much faster broadband speeds in the US areas where it operates its fiber networks, all the way to 100Gbps.Google Fiber, part of the Access division of the search giant's parent company, Alphabet, currently provides a 1Gbps service, and began upgrading its speed in 2021 with the introduction of a 2Gbps product offering downstream bandwidth of 2Gbps and upstream bandwidth of 1Gbps for $100 a month.That comes up against AT&T Fiber's similar tier at $110, Verizon Fios and Ziply Fiber's 120 plans, and Frontier's Fiber 2-gig is $150, although, of course, Google's $100 pricing may not...

If you haven’t yet heard new Italian leader Giorgia Meloni’s pro-family speech, YouTube may not be the best place to get an earful.Giorgia recently became the first female prime minister in the country’s history, which might’ve been viewed favorably by the Left. However, she doesn’t share their views; hence, they won’t call it a win.In fact, legacy media have essentially characterized the lady as evil.From CBS News:It’s a stunning victory for Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy Party — stunning because it was just a fringe party until a few short years ago, and stunning because of Italy’s disastrous...

Why would a country undermine phonics? One of the most startling queries I ever received came from a teacher in Israel. Here is the entire communication: I watched some of your youtube videos with thirst and feel the frustration that I feel when I tutor private elementary students, who come without any clue as to how to read English, as if for 5-6 years all they had done was filling workbooks and learning word lists. Older students keep telling me their teachers insist on guessing from texts and looking for clues when words are unknown, and they fear to use...