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ConocoPhillips will acquire Marathon Oil in a .5 billion all-stock deal

ConocoPhillips will acquire Marathon Oil in a $22.5 billion all-stock deal

Related media - Related media The oil industry in the United States, the world’s largest producer of crude oil, is made up of many small and medium-sized oil companies, ranging from family businesses with a few wells in one state to global giants like Exxon Mobil. Wall Street values ​​ConocoPhillips at about $140 billion, or about 10 times larger than Marathon Oil but about a quarter of Exxon. Oil companies have completed some of the largest acquisitions in the past year despite regulatory scrutiny from the Biden administration and oil market volatility. U.S. giants have capitalized on record profits, giving…
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How to trace your ancestors using free tools on your phone

How to trace your ancestors using free tools on your phone

Associated media - Connected media Spending time in cemeteries and libraries may not be everyone’s idea of ​​summer fun, but for those interested in finding their roots, gathering information about their ancestors AND a “family” holiday. Sure, genealogy sites have made researching ancestral history much easier with digitized record archives, family tree-building software, and community forums. Hand anything it’s online. As you visit libraries, archives and cemeteries in search of your roots, keep your smartphone or tablet handy: it can help you with translation tools, document scanners and more. Here are some tips that can make your research trips more…
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How the Humane AI Pin Failed

How the Humane AI Pin Failed

Connected media - Linked media Ms. Bongiorno and Mr. Chaudhri said Humane had been working on problems with the device. The startup has added more voice navigation options to the device, as well as sound effects, to make it easier to use. The updates include the integration of OpenAI’s latest chatbot system, GPT-4o, designed to improve battery life by 25% and reduce device response time to two seconds. Those updates addressed questions raised by auditors, the founders said. Ms. Bongiorno called the reviews and feedback “a gift given to us.” Companies are interested in the device, he added. Within 48…
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Modi in India, humiliated by voters, faces powerful economic difficulties

Modi in India, humiliated by voters, faces powerful economic difficulties

Associated media - Related media The humiliation of Modi’s party resonates in part as an expression of popular frustration that India remains a land of economic peril for hundreds of millions of people, as well as a country characterized by startling contrasts in wealth. In big cities, five-star hotels boasting lavish spas look down on teeming, unplumbed slums. In rural areas, malnutrition prevails under many roofs and families struggle to find the money to send their children to school. Even though its working-age population numbers about a billion, India has only 430 million jobs, according to the Center for Monitoring…
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The Rise and Fall of BNN Breaking, an AI-Generated News Outlet

The Rise and Fall of BNN Breaking, an AI-Generated News Outlet

Linked media - Connected media A closer look, however, would have revealed that individual journalists at BNN published lengthy stories as often as multiple times a minute, writing in generic prose familiar to anyone who has tinkered with the A.I. chatbot ChatGPT. BNN’s “About Us” page featured an image of four children looking at a computer, some bearing the gnarled fingers that are a telltale sign of an A.I.-generated image. How easily the site and its mistakes entered the ecosystem for legitimate news highlights a growing concern: A.I.-generated content is upending, and often poisoning, the online information supply. Many traditional…
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US leads the way in antitrust investigations into Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

US leads the way in antitrust investigations into Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI

Connected media - Associated media For months, Nvidia, Microsoft and OpenAI have largely escaped the brunt of the Biden administration’s regulatory scrutiny. But things started to change when generative AI, capable of producing human-like text, photos, video and audio, hit the scene in late 2022 and created a frenzy in the industry. Regulators have recently signaled that they want to get ahead of developments in artificial intelligence. In July, the FTC opened an investigation into whether OpenAI had harmed consumers through data collection. In January, the FTC also launched a broad investigation into strategic partnerships between tech giants and AI…
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Muhammad Ali’s childhood home goes on the market

Muhammad Ali’s childhood home goes on the market

Related media - Associated media George Bochetto, a Philadelphia lawyer who said he owned the house with his late partner’s widow, bought it in 2016 for $60,000. “It was abandoned for many years. He was run down,” Mr. Bochetto said in an interview Tuesday. He marveled at how “this little house on the western edge of Louisville, modest as it was, could produce a magnificent world figure.” He added: “Muhammad Ali was one of my heroes as a child.” Mr. Bochetto said he wants the new owners to “make sure the house is preserved” as an honor to him. The…
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Switching from iPhone to Android is easy

Switching from iPhone to Android is easy

Linked media - Associated media Apple announced that later this year it will improve messaging between iPhone and Android users by adopting advanced communications services, a standard that Google and others built into their messaging apps years ago. Texts sent between iPhone and Android will remain green, but images and videos will be higher quality. Losing your Apple wallet For iPhones, the reference app for making mobile payments in stores is Apple Wallet and for Android users the equivalent app is Google Wallet. The experience of using each wallet app was identical: I loaded my credit cards and the Clipper…
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Google restores AI search functionality after errors and flaws

Google restores AI search functionality after errors and flaws

Connected media - Related media Liz Reid, Google’s recently promoted head of search, wrote in a blog post Thursday that the company has pared down its AI overviews in certain ways, rolling out “additional opt-in refinements” to deliver more health-conscious answers , disabling misleading advice and limiting the inclusion of satire and user responses from forums like Reddit. “We will continue to improve when and how we show AI overviews and strengthen our protections,” he wrote, adding that Google is working on updates to improve broad sets of search results. Ashley Thompson, a spokeswoman for Google, said in a statement…
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