Apple embraces the AI craze with its newly unleashed iPhone 16 lineup

Apple embraces the AI craze with its newly unleashed iPhone 16 lineup
Apple iPhone 16 models are displayed following Apple's "It's Glowtime" event in Cupertino, California, September 9, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 10 September 2024

Apple embraces the AI craze with its newly unleashed iPhone 16 lineup

Apple embraces the AI craze with its newly unleashed iPhone 16 lineup
  • Apple’s AI features are designed to turn its often-blundering virtual assistant Siri into a smarter and more versatile sidekick

CUPERTINO, California: Apple on Monday charged into the artificial intelligence craze with a new iPhone lineup that marks the company’s latest attempt to latch onto a technology trend and transform it into a cultural phenomenon.
The four different iPhone 16 models will all come equipped with special chips needed to power a suite if AI tools that Apple hopes will make its marquee product even more indispensable and reverse a recent sales slump.
Apple’s AI features are designed to turn its often-blundering virtual assistant Siri into a smarter and more versatile sidekick, automate a wide range of tedious tasks and pull off other crowd-pleasing tricks such as creating customized emojis within seconds.
After receiving a standing ovation for Monday’s event, Apple CEO Tim Cook promised the AI package will unleash “innovations that will make a true difference in people’s lives.”
But the breakthroughs won’t begin as soon as the new iPhones — ranging in price from $800 to $1,200 — hit the stores on September 20.
Most of Apple’s AI functions will roll out as part of a free software updates to iOS 18, the operating system that will power the iPhone 16 rolling out from October through December. US English will be the featured language at launch but an update enabling other languages will come out next year, according to Apple.
It’s all part of a new approach that Apple previewed at a developers conference three months ago to create more anticipation for a next generation of iPhones amid a rare sales slump for the well-known devices.
Since Apple’s June conference, competitors such as Samsung and Google have made greater strides in AI – a technology widely expected to trigger the most dramatic changes in computing since the first iPhone came out 17 years ago.
Just as Apple elevated fledgling smartphones it into a must-have technology in 21st-century society, the Cupertino, California, company is betting it can do something similar with its tardy arrival to artificial intelligence.
In an attempt to set itself apart from the early leaders in AI, the technology being baked into the iPhone 16 is being promoted as “Apple Intelligence.” Despite the unique branding, Apple’s new approach mimics many of the features already available in the Samsung Galaxy S24 released in January and the Google Pixel 9 that came out last month.
“Apple could have waited another year for further development, but initial take up of AI- powered devices from the likes of Samsung has been encouraging, and Apple is keen to capitalize on this market,” said PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore.
As it treads into new territory, Apple is trying to preserve its long-time commitment to privacy by tailoring its AI so that most of its technological tricks can processed on the device itself instead of relying on giant banks of computers located in remote data centers. When a task needs to connect to a data center, Apple promises it will be done in a tightly-controlled way that ensures that no personal data is stored remotely.
While corralling the personal information shared through Apple’s AI tools inherently reduces the chances that the data will be exploited or misused against a user’s wishes, it doesn’t guarantee iron-clad security. A device could still be stolen, for instance, or hacked through digital chicanery.
For users seeking to access even more AI tools than being offered by the iPhone, Apple is teaming up with OpenAI to give users the option of farming out more complicated tasks to the popular ChatGPT chatbot.
Although Apple is releasing a free version of its operating system to propel its on-device AI features, the chip needed to run the technology is only available on the iPhone 16 lineup and the high-end iPhone 15 models that came out a year ago.
That means most consumers who are interested in taking advantage of Apple’s approach to AI will have to buy one of the iPhone 16 models – a twist that investors are counting on will fuel a surge in demand heading into the holiday season.
The anticipated sales boom is the main reason Apple’s stock price has climbed by more than 10 percent, including a slight uptick Monday after the shares initially slipped following the showcase for the latest iPhones.
Besides its latest iPhones, Apple also introduced a new version of its smartwatch that will include a feature to help detect sleep apnea as well the next generation of its wireless headphones, the AirPods Pro, that will be able to function as a hearing aid with an upcoming software update.


Prince and Princess of Wales attend Wimbledon final between Alcaraz and Sinner

Britain’s Prince William, Kate, Princess of Wales, center, and Princess Charlotte arrive to attend the men’s singles final match
Britain’s Prince William, Kate, Princess of Wales, center, and Princess Charlotte arrive to attend the men’s singles final match
Updated 59 min 13 sec ago

Prince and Princess of Wales attend Wimbledon final between Alcaraz and Sinner

Britain’s Prince William, Kate, Princess of Wales, center, and Princess Charlotte arrive to attend the men’s singles final match
  • Kate is the patron of the All England Club and was scheduled to present the trophies after the match

LONDON: Kate, the Princess of Wales, returned to Wimbledon on Sunday along with her husband Prince William and their daughter Charlotte to watch the men’s final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
Kate is the patron of the All England Club and was scheduled to present the trophies after the match.
On Saturday, she was the only member of her family in the Royal Box for the women’s final and gave champion Iga Swiatek her prize after a 6-0, 6-0 victory and offered consoling words to runner-up Amanda Anisimova.
On Sunday they were set to be joined by King Felipe VI of Spain, a number of former Wimbledon champions and a slew of Hollywood celebrities.
Actors Keira Knightley, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman and John Lithgow were all set to be seated in the Royal Box, as was London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Last year, while recovering from cancer, Kate did not attend the women’s final but was on hand for Alcaraz’s win against Novak Djokovic at the All England Club.
She has been gradually returning to public duties and recently welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron during a state visit to Britain.


Gisele Pelicot and Pharrell Williams get France’s top honor

Gisele Pelicot and Pharrell Williams get France’s top honor
Updated 13 July 2025

Gisele Pelicot and Pharrell Williams get France’s top honor

Gisele Pelicot and Pharrell Williams get France’s top honor
  • Gisele Pelicot, who became a feminist icon by publicly testifying over the mass rapes she endured
  • Rapper-turned-fashion designer Pharrell Williams were among 589 people awarded France’s top civic honor on Sunday

PARIS: Gisele Pelicot, who became a feminist icon by publicly testifying over the mass rapes she endured, and rapper-turned-fashion designer Pharrell Williams were among 589 people awarded France’s top civic honor on Sunday.
Pelicot, 72, and Williams were both named knights of the Legion of Honour on a list announced ahead of France’s July 14 national day.
Pelicot earned international tributes for her courage in testifying at a trial in 2024 against her former husband, who drugged her and arranged for her to be raped by dozens of men over a decade.
She has since been named on lists of the world’s most influential people by international media and the case helped forced a change in France’s rape law.
But Pelicot has remained silent since the trial. Her lawyer says she is concentrating on writing a book giving her side of the mass rape story which is to be released in 2026.
Williams, 52, made his name as a rapper and singer but earned a second fortune as a music producer and after designing clothes and accessories for several brands. He has been Louis Vuitton’s men’s creative director since 2023.
His recent Paris show attracted a host of international celebrities, including Jay Z and Beyonce, film directors Steve McQueen and Spike Lee and football and basketball stars.
Actor Lea Drucker, veteran singer Sylvie Vartan, writer Marc Levy and Auschwitz deportee Yvette Levy, 99, were also among the figures awarded the Legion of Honour along with a host of former ministers, academics and top legal names.


Hungary’s oldest library is fighting to save 100,000 books from a beetle infestation

Hungary’s oldest library is fighting to save 100,000 books from a beetle infestation
Updated 13 July 2025

Hungary’s oldest library is fighting to save 100,000 books from a beetle infestation

Hungary’s oldest library is fighting to save 100,000 books from a beetle infestation
  • The 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey is a sprawling Benedictine monastery that is one of Hungary’s oldest centers of learning and a UNESCO World Heritage site

PANNONHALMA, Hungary: Tens of thousands of centuries-old books are being pulled from the shelves of a medieval abbey in Hungary in an effort to save them from a beetle infestation that could wipe out centuries of history.

The 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey is a sprawling Benedictine monastery that is one of Hungary’s oldest centers of learning and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Restoration workers are removing about 100,000 handbound books from their shelves and carefully placing them in crates, the start of a disinfection process that aims to kill the tiny beetles burrowed into them.

The drugstore beetle, also known as the bread beetle, is often found among dried foodstuffs like grains, flour and spices. But they also are attracted to the gelatin and starch-based adhesives found in books.

They have been found in a section of the library housing around a quarter of the abbey’s 400,000 volumes.

“This is an advanced insect infestation which has been detected in several parts of the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated all at the same time,” said Zsófia Edit Hajjdu, the chief restorer on the project. “We’ve never encountered such a degree of infection before.”

Abbey houses historical treasures

The beetle invasion was first detected during a routine library cleaning. Employees noticed unusual layers of dust on the shelves and then saw that holes had been burrowed into some of the book spines. Upon opening the volumes, burrow holes could be seen in the paper where the beetles chewed through.

The abbey at Pannonhalma was founded in 996, four years before the establishment of the Hungarian Kingdom. Sitting upon a tall hill in northwestern Hungary, the abbey houses the country’s oldest collection of books, as well as many of its earliest and most important written records.

For over 1,000 years, the abbey has been among the most prominent religious and cultural sites in Hungary and all of Central Europe, surviving centuries of wars and foreign incursions such as the Ottoman invasion and occupation of Hungary in the 16th century.

Ilona Asvanyi, director of the Pannonhalma Archabbey library, said she is “humbled” by the historical and cultural treasures the collection holds whenever she enters.

“It is dizzying to think that there was a library here a thousand years ago, and that we are the keepers of the first book catalogue in Hungary,” she said.

Among the library’s most outstanding works are 19 codices, including a complete Bible from the 13th century. It also houses several hundred manuscripts predating the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century and tens of thousands of books from the 16th century.

While the oldest and rarest prints and books are stored separately and have not been infected, Asvanyi said any damage to the collection represents a blow to cultural, historical and religious heritage.

“When I see a book chewed up by a beetle or infected in any other way, I feel that no matter how many copies are published and how replaceable the book is, a piece of culture has been lost,” she said.

Books will spend weeks in an oxygen-free environment

To kill the beetles, the crates of books are being placed into tall, hermetically sealed plastic sacks from which all oxygen is removed. After six weeks in the pure nitrogen environment, the abbey hopes all the beetles will be destroyed.

Before being reshelved, each book will be individually inspected and vacuumed. Any book damaged by the pests will be set aside for later restoration work.

Climate change may have contributed

The abbey, which hopes to reopen the library at the beginning of next year, believes the effects of climate change played a role in spurring the beetle infestation as average temperatures rise rapidly in Hungary.

Hajjdu, the chief restorer, said higher temperatures have allowed the beetles to undergo several more development cycles annually than they could in cooler weather.

“Higher temperatures are favorable for the life of insects,” she said. “So far we’ve mostly dealt with mold damage in both depositories and in open collections. But now I think more and more insect infestations will appear due to global warming.”

The library’s director said life in a Benedictine abbey is governed by a set of rules in use for nearly 15 centuries, a code that obliges them to do everything possible to save its vast collection.

“It says in the Rule of Saint Benedict that all the property of the monastery should be considered as of the same value as the sacred vessel of the altar,” Asvanyi said. “I feel the responsibility of what this preservation and conservation really means.”


The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is going up for auction in New York

The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is going up for auction in New York
Updated 13 July 2025

The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is going up for auction in New York

The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is going up for auction in New York
  • The natural history-themed sale on Wednesday features a 54-pound hunk of Mars estimated at $2 million to $4 million

NEW YORK: For sale: A 54-pound (25-kilogram) rock. Estimated auction price: $2 million to $4 million. Why so expensive? It’s the largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth.
Sotheby’s in New York will be auctioning what’s known as NWA 16788 on Wednesday as part of a natural history-themed sale that also includes a juvenile Ceratosaurus dinosaur skeleton that’s more than 6 feet (2 meters) tall and nearly 11 feet (3 meters) long.
According to the auction house, the meteorite is believed to have been blown off the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid strike before traveling 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) to Earth, where it crashed into the Sahara. A meteorite hunter found it in Niger in November 2023, Sotheby’s says.
The red, brown and gray hunk is about 70 percent larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth and represents nearly 7 percent of all the Martian material currently on this planet, Sotheby’s says. It measures nearly 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches (375 millimeters by 279 millimeters by 152 millimeters).
“This Martian meteorite is the largest piece of Mars we have ever found by a long shot,” Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman for science and natural history at Sotheby’s, said in an interview. “So it’s more than double the size of what we previously thought was the largest piece of Mars.”
It is also a rare find. There are only 400 Martian meteorites out of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites found on Earth, Sotheby’s says.
Hatton said a small piece of the red planet remnant was removed and sent to a specialized lab that confirmed it is from Mars. It was compared with the distinct chemical composition of Martian meteorites discovered during the Viking space probe that landed on Mars in 1976, she said.
The examination found that it is an “olivine-microgabbroic shergottite,” a type of Martian rock formed from the slow cooling of Martian magma. It has a course-grained texture and contains the minerals pyroxene and olivine, Sotheby’s says.
It also has a glassy surface, likely due to the high heat that burned it when it fell through Earth’s atmosphere, Hatton said. “So that was their first clue that this wasn’t just some big rock on the ground,” she said.
The meteorite previously was on exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome. Sotheby’s did not disclose the owner.
It’s not clear exactly when the meteorite hit Earth, but testing shows it probably happened in recent years, Sotheby’s said.
The juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis skeleton was found in 1996 near Laramie, Wyoming, at Bone Cabin Quarry, a gold mine for dinosaur bones. Specialists assembled nearly 140 fossil bones with some sculpted materials to recreate the skeleton and mounted it so it’s ready to exhibit, Sotheby’s says.
The skeleton is believed to be from the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago, Sotheby’s says. It’s auction estimate is $4 million to $6 million.
Ceratosaurus dinosaurs were bipeds with short arms that appear similar to the Tyrannosaurus rex, but smaller. Ceratosaurus dinosaurs could grow up to 25 feet (7.6 meters) long, while the Tyrannosaurs rex could be 40 feet (12 meters) long.
The skeleton was acquired last year by Fossilogic, a Utah-based fossil preparation and mounting company.
Wednesday’s auction is part of Sotheby’s Geek Week 2025 and features 122 items, including other meteorites, fossils and gem-quality minerals.


French prisoner escapes in fellow inmate’s luggage

The 20-year-old prisoner escaped from Corbas prison, near Lyon, southeast France, on Friday, broadcaster BFMTV reported. (AFP)
The 20-year-old prisoner escaped from Corbas prison, near Lyon, southeast France, on Friday, broadcaster BFMTV reported. (AFP)
Updated 13 July 2025

French prisoner escapes in fellow inmate’s luggage

The 20-year-old prisoner escaped from Corbas prison, near Lyon, southeast France, on Friday, broadcaster BFMTV reported. (AFP)
  • The inmate “took advantage of the liberation of his fellow inmate to hide himself in his luggage and get out,” the statement said

LYON: France’s prison service said Saturday it had launched an investigation after a man escaped by smuggling himself into his cellmate’s bag as he left jail, having served his sentence.
The 20-year-old prisoner escaped from Corbas prison, near Lyon, southeast France, on Friday, broadcaster BFMTV reported.
The inmate was serving several sentences, the prison service said in a statement to AFP.
He “took advantage of the liberation of his fellow inmate to hide himself in his luggage and get out,” the statement said.
The escaped prisoner was also under investigation in a case linked to organized crime, a source close to the affair told AFP.
An internal investigation is underway and Lyon prosecutors had opened their own investigations, the prison service added.