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Elon Musk’s SpaceX is bidding for a secretive contract to build swarms of voice-controlled drones for the US military. The Pentagon has launched a $100m (£74m) competition to develop an AI bot that can be used to translate voice or written commands from soldiers to a fleet of drones. Mr Musk’s SpaceX is one of the companies pitching for a share of the work, Bloomberg reported. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is also said to be working with US autonomous vehicles business, Applied Intuition, on a rival bid. Telegraph
Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report. Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector’s explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacentres.. The research, commissioned by nonprofits including Beyond Fossil Fuels and Climate Action Against Disinformation, did not find a single example where popular tools were leading to a “material, verifiable, and substantial” reduction in planet-heating emissions. The Guardian
Late last year, Ultrahuman’s best smart rings were banned from the US as part of the fallout from a patent dispute with Oura. At the time, Ultrahuman said that “A new ring design is already in development” – and a newly published regulatory filing suggests that this product is almost upon us. As reported by Gadgets & Wearables, the Ultrahuman Ring Pro has just been revealed in paperwork filed with the FCC in the US. The filing lists several specifications of the new device and suggests that Ultrahuman has made changes to avoid infringing the patents that got its previous products banned. Tech Radar
Tech bosses, politicians, scientists, academics and campaigners are meeting at the AI Impact Summit in India this week for top-level discussions about what the world should be doing to try to guide the AI revolution in the right direction. It has kicked off not just with long queues and confusion for some delegates, but also conflicting reports about whether keynote speaker Bill Gates would appear. Reports overnight suggested the Microsoft founder – who has faced questions after appearing in the Epstein files – would no longer be addressing the Summit. BBC
Ofcom has granted the UK’s first licence to provide direct-to-cell satellite communications to Virgin Media O2, paving the way for the operator to launch services in the next few months. Although technically it is not a new licence, but rather a variation on the mobile operator’s existing concession, as per the new rules finalised by the regulator at the back end of last year. The regulations are set to come into force on 25 February. “We have now inserted the frequencies on which the company is allowed to provide D2D services and formally made the regulations that allow existing handsets to use the service,” Ofcom said, in a brief statement. Telecoms.com
Apple today announced a “special Apple Experience” in New York, London, and Shanghai, taking place on March 4, 2026 at 9:00am ET.
Apple invited select members of the media to the event in three major cities around the world. It is simply described as a “special Apple Experience,” and there is no further information about what it may entail. The invitation features a 3D Apple logo design composed of yellow, green, and blue discs. It is notable that Apple is specifically using the word “experience,” rather than “event.” Unlike a full live-streamed event from Apple Park, the March 4 event in other cities is likely to be smaller in scale. Tech Radar
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