Tech
China EV giant BYD soars after 5-minute charging platform unveiled
Shares in Chinese EV giant BYD surged to a record high Tuesday after it unveiled new battery technology it says can charge a vehicle in the same time it takes to fill up a petrol car. The company said the battery and charging system, called "Super e-Platform", boasted peak speeds… Read
Carbon capture industry tweaks message for Trump era
Backers of carbon capture and storage are emphasizing compatibility with President Trump's energy development goals as they seek to protect hard-won U.S. policies from the administration's climate chopping block. At the CERA Week energy conference this month, supporters of CCS, a climate mitigation strategy long favored by oil companies, described… Read
Gov't to support domestic cybersecurity firms
The Japanese government will start encouraging the growth of the domestic cybersecurity industry to reduce dependence on services provided by foreign companies. In the plan to be launched in the fiscal year from April, the government aims to more than triple annual domestic cybersecurity sales to over 3 trillion yen… Read
From oil spills to new species: How tech reveals the ocean
The ocean covers nearly three-quarters of our planet but scientists say we have barely scratched the surface of what lives in our seas. But new technologies are helping to change that, revealing hidden oil spills, speeding up the discovery of new species and uncovering how light pollution impacts marine life.… Read
China's Baidu releases new, free AI model to compete with DeepSeek
Chinese internet search giant Baidu released a new artificial intelligence reasoning model Sunday and made its AI chatbot services free as ferocious competition grips the sector. Technology companies in China have been scrambling to release improved AI platforms since start-up DeepSeek shocked its rivals with its open source and highly… Read
World’s first 3D-printed train station building planned by JR West
Japan is home to a wide variety of train stations, from tiny countryside sheds to sprawling urban complexes, stations with their own wineries and ones with giant ancient relics whose eyes glow. It’s gotten to the point where it’s really hard to be “the first” anything when it comes to train stations, but JR West has… Read
Driverless 'bus of the future' tested in Barcelona
Commuters in downtown Barcelona have been able to ride the bus for free this week. There’s just one catch: this mini-bus has no one at the wheel. The bus pulls away from the stop with its passengers on its own, brakes before changing lanes and eases down one of Barcelona’s… Read
Games industry still a hostile environment for many women
Five years on from a first wave of harassment scandals that rocked the world of gaming, multiple women working in the industry tell AFP they have seen or experienced sexism in the workplace, fearing economic hardship in the sector will lead to backsliding. "I have experienced circumstances of harassment, circumstances… Read
Meta to start testing crowd-sourced fact-checking, based on X example
Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms Inc will begin testing its crowd-sourced fact-checking program, Community Notes, on March 18. It will initially based on a ratings system used by Elon Musk's X. Meta ended its fact-checking program in January. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time that fact-checkers had… Read
Taiwan tech giant Foxconn's 2024 profit misses forecasts
Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn reported on Friday a lower-than-expected net profit for 2024 as consumer electronic gadgets underperformed, although demand for its artificial intelligence servers remained robust. The world's largest contract electronics manufacturer has been moving beyond assembling devices such as Apple's iPhones into areas ranging from electric vehicles to… Read
