LONDON: The BBC named a former Google executive with no television or journalism experience as its next director-general Wednesday.&nbsp;The long-expected appointment of Matt Brittin to the high-profile role comes as the under-fire British broadcaster faces drastic shifts in the media landscape and a $10-billion lawsuit brought by US President Donald Trump.&nbsp;Brittin, 57, said he was honoured to be appointed at a &quot;moment of real risk, yet also real opportunity&quot;.&nbsp;&quot;Now, more than ever, we need a thriving &nbsp;BBC that works for everyone in a complex, uncertain and fast-changing world,&quot; he added.&nbsp;The British-born executive was president for over a decade of Google&#39;s Europe, Middle East and Africa division, which earns around a third of its revenue. He had previously worked as a consultant for McKinsey.&nbsp;Samir Shah, chairman of the BBC board, said Brittin &quot;brings to the BBC deep experience of leading a high-profile and highly-complex organization through transformation.&quot;&nbsp;He &quot;is an outstanding leader and has the skills needed to navigate the organization through the many changes taking place in the media market,&quot; Shah added.&nbsp;Brittin&#39;s name has been circulating in the UK media for weeks, after the current director-general, Tim Davie resigned in November over the editing of a documentary about Trump.&nbsp;The Times wrote that appointing a tech executive with no broadcasting experience &quot;has raised some eyebrows&quot;.&nbsp;&quot;While his experience in the world of big tech could be an advantage, Mr Brittin will have to quickly demonstrate a commitment to public service broadcasting,&quot; opposition lawmaker Caroline Dinenage told the daily.&nbsp;A columnist at the right-wing Daily Telegraph wrote that Brittin was &quot;just what the BBC doesn&#39;t need: a new Lefty boss&quot;.&nbsp;Davie, who has held the BBC post since 2020, will step down on April 2, and Brittin will take on the challenging role on May 18.&nbsp;The BBC had described it as one of &quot;the most important, high-profile public posts in the UK&quot;.&nbsp;Brittin stepped down from Google last year after 18 years saying he wanted a break.

Europe

Matt Brittin, former Google executive, was appointed BBC director-general, succeeding Tim Davie. His selection sparks debate due to limited media experience amid industry challenges and criticism.

Ex-Google chief Matt Brittin made new BBC director-general

LOS ANGELES: Meta and Google-owned YouTube were vilified Monday for &quot;engineering addiction&quot; as a landmark social media trial began in earnest in a California court.&nbsp;The blockbuster trial in front of a Los Angeles jury could establish a legal precedent on whether the social media juggernauts deliberately designed their platforms to lead to addiction in children.&nbsp;The proceedings are expected to see Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg on the stand next week and Instagram boss Adam Mosseri in the courtroom as early as Wednesday. Besides Instagram, Meta&#39;s platforms include Facebook and WhatsApp.&nbsp;&quot;This case is about two of the richest corporations in history who have engineered addiction in children&#39;s brains,&quot; plaintiff&#39;s attorney Mark Lanier told the jury in his opening statement.&nbsp;&quot;This case is as easy as A-B-C,&quot; Lanier said as he stacked children&#39;s toy blocks bearing the letters.&nbsp;He contended the A was for addicting, the B for brains and the C for children.&nbsp;&quot;They don&#39;t only build apps; they build traps,&quot; Lanier said, saying Meta and YouTube pursued &quot;addiction by design.&quot;&nbsp;The case is being treated as a bellwether proceeding because its outcome could set the tone for a tidal wave of similar litigation across the United States.&nbsp;Social media firms are accused in hundreds of lawsuits of leading young users to become addicted to content and suffer from depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization and even suicide.&nbsp;Lawyers for the plaintiffs are borrowing strategies used in the 1990s and 2000s against the tobacco industry, which faced a similar onslaught of lawsuits arguing that companies knowingly sold a harmful product.&nbsp;The trial before Judge Carolyn Kuhl focuses on allegations that a 20-year-old woman identified as Kaley G.M. suffered severe mental harm because she became addicted to social media as a child.&nbsp;&quot;This is the first time that a social media company has ever had to face a jury for harming kids,&quot; Social Media Victims Law Center founder Matthew Bergman, whose team is involved in more than 1,000 such cases, told AFP.&nbsp;The center is a legal organization pursuing social media companies for harm allegedly caused to young people online.&nbsp;Strongly disagreeInternet titans have argued that they are shielded by Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which frees them of responsibility for what social media users post.&nbsp;However, this case argues that those firms are culpable for business models designed to hold people&#39;s attention and to promote content that can harm their mental health.&nbsp;A Meta spokesperson said &quot;we strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.&quot;&nbsp;The company pointed to recent efforts to provide more safeguards for young people, adding that &quot;we&#39;re always working to do better.&quot;&nbsp;Jose Castaneda, a YouTube spokesperson, said &quot;the allegations in these complaints are simply not true.&quot;&nbsp;&quot;Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,&quot; he added.&nbsp;Snapchat and TikTok were named as defendants in the suit, but struck settlement deals before the start of the trial. The terms were not disclosed.&nbsp;Lawsuits, including some brought by school districts, accusing social media platforms of practices endangering young users are making their way through federal court in northern California and state courts across the country.&nbsp;A separate lawsuit accusing Meta of putting profit over the wellbeing of young users is also getting under way in New Mexico.&nbsp;&quot;Our investigation into Meta&#39;s social media platforms demonstrates that they are not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex,&quot; New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said in a statement.&nbsp;Meta has rejected the accusations and vowed to defend itself in court.

Artificial Intelligence

Meta and Google-owned YouTube face a landmark California jury trial accusing them of engineering addictive social media that harmed children.

Meta, Google face jury in landmark US addiction trial

PARIS: Google unveiled an artificial intelligence tool Wednesday that its scientists said would help unravel the mysteries of the human genome and could one day lead to new treatments for diseases.&nbsp;The deep learning model AlphaGenome was hailed by outside researchers as a &quot;breakthrough&quot; that would let scientists&rsquo; study and even simulate the roots of difficult-to-treat genetic diseases.&nbsp;While the first complete map of the human genome in 2003 &quot;gave us the book of life, reading it remained a challenge&quot;, Pushmeet Kohli, vice president of research at Google DeepMind, told journalists.&nbsp;&quot;We have the text,&quot; he said, which is a sequence of three billion nucleotide pairs represented by the letters A, T, C and G that make up DNA.&nbsp;However, &quot;understanding the grammar of this genome -- what is encoded in our DNA and how it governs life -- is the next critical frontier for research,&quot; said Kohli, co-author of a new study in the journal Nature.&nbsp;Only around two percent of our DNA contains instructions for making proteins, which are the molecules that build and run the body.&nbsp;The other 98 percent was long dismissed as &quot;junk DNA&quot; as scientists struggled to understand what it was for.&nbsp;However, this &quot;non-coding DNA&quot; is now believed to act like a conductor, directing how genetic information works in each of our cells.&nbsp;These sequences also contain many variants that have been associated with diseases. It is these sequences that AlphaGenome is aiming to understand.&nbsp;A million lettersThe project is just one part of Google&#39;s AI-powered scientific work, which also includes AlphaFold, the winner of 2024&#39;s chemistry Nobel.&nbsp;AlphaGenome&#39;s model was trained on data from public projects that measured non-coding DNA across hundreds of different cell and tissue types in humans and mice.&nbsp;The tool is able to analyze long DNA sequences then predict how each nucleotide pair will influence different biological processes within the cell.&nbsp;This includes whether genes start and stop and how much RNA -- molecules which transmit genetic instructions inside cells -- is produced.&nbsp;Other models already exist that have a similar aim. However, they have to compromise, either by analyzing far shorter DNA sequences or decreasing how detailed their predictions are, known as resolution.&nbsp;DeepMind scientist and lead study author Ziga Avsec said that long sequences -- up to a million DNA letters long -- were &quot;required to understand the full regulatory environment of a single gene&quot;.&nbsp;And the high resolution of the model allows scientists to study the impact of genetic variants by comparing the differences between mutated and non-mutated sequences.&nbsp;&quot;AlphaGenome can accelerate our understanding of the genome by helping to map where the functional elements are and what their roles are on a molecular level,&quot; study co-author Natasha Latysheva said.&nbsp;The model has already been tested by 3,000 scientists across 160 countries and is open for anyone to use for non-commercial reasons, Google said.&nbsp;&quot;We hope researchers will extend it with more data,&quot; Kohli added.&nbsp;&#39;Breakthrough&#39;&nbsp;Ben Lehner, a researcher at Cambridge University who was not involved in developing AlphaGenome but did test it, said the model &quot;does indeed perform very well&quot;.&nbsp;&quot;Identifying the precise differences in our genomes that make us more or less likely to develop thousands of diseases is a key step towards developing better therapeutics,&quot; he explained.&nbsp;However, AlphaGenome &quot;is far from perfect and there is still a lot of work to do&quot;, he added.&nbsp;&quot;AI models are only as good as the data used to train them&quot; and the existing data is not very suitable, he said.&nbsp;Robert Goldstone, head of genomics at the UK&#39;s Francis Crick Institute, cautioned that AlphaGenome was &quot;not a magic bullet for all biological questions&quot;.&nbsp;This was partly because &quot;gene expression is influenced by complex environmental factors that the model cannot see&quot;, he said.&nbsp;However, the tool still represented a &quot;breakthrough&quot; that would allow scientists to &quot;study and simulate the genetic roots of complex disease&quot;, Goldstone added.

Google’s AI, AlphaGenome, studies DNA, especially “non-coding” parts, to see how genes work and how changes can cause disease. It helps scientists understand genetics better, though it can’t account for all environmental effects.

Google unveils AI tool probing mysteries of human genome

BRUSSELS: Google must provide rival AI services equal access to its features and other search engine platforms access to data, the EU said on Tuesday, as it said it would help the giant over six months to comply with rules.&nbsp;The EU executive said it would launch proceedings to help <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/eu-launches-antitrust-probe-into-googles-data-use-for-ai" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Google</a> prepare measures in line with its flagship rulebook, the Digital Markets Act (DMA).&nbsp;Under the DMA, the world&#39;s biggest tech companies must open up to competition to give consumers more options and limit abuses linked to market dominance.&nbsp;US President Donald Trump&#39;s government has railed against the law and its sister content moderation law the Digital Services Act, accusing Brussels of unfairly targeting US firms.&nbsp;The European Commission wants to ensure Google gives rival AI service providers equal access to its Android operating system, and demands the American titan grants competing search engines access to search data.&nbsp;Brussels believes the move will allow rivals &quot;to optimise their services and offer users genuine alternatives to Google Search&quot;.&nbsp;The EU step is not a formal investigation that could lead to fines.&nbsp;But if Brussels is not satisfied with Google&#39;s efforts, it can later conclude the company is not complying.&nbsp;And any DMA violations can lead to fines of up to 10 percent of a company&#39;s total global turnover.&nbsp;&quot;We want to help Google by explaining in more detail how it should comply with its interoperability and online search data sharing obligations under the Digital Markets Act,&quot; EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.&nbsp;Google pushed back, insisting Android is open by design.&nbsp;&quot;We&#39;re already licensing search data to competitors under the DMA,&quot; Google&#39;s senior competition counsel Clare Kelly said in a statement.&nbsp;&quot;However, we are concerned that further rules which are often driven by competitor grievances rather than the interest of consumers, will compromise user privacy, security, and innovation.&quot;&nbsp;The commission said it would conclude the proceedings within six months.&nbsp;Google already faces a fine under the DMA for favouring its own services in a probe launched in March 2024.&nbsp;The giant has also been subject to a separate DMA probe since November over suspicions it pushed down news outlets in search results.&nbsp;The scrutiny does not end with the DMA. Google also faces cases under the bloc&#39;s competition rules.&nbsp;In December, the EU said it had opened a probe to assess whether Google breached antitrust rules by using content put online by media and other publishers to train and provide AI services without appropriate compensation.&nbsp;That came after the EU slapped Google with a 2.95-billion-euro ($3.5 billion) fine in September for breaking competition rules.

The EU told Google to give rival AI and search engines equal access under the Digital Markets Act, launching a six-month compliance process. Non-compliance could trigger major fines, as Google already faces multiple EU probes.

EU to show Google how to open up to rival AI services

SAN FRANCISCO: Tech giants Apple and Google announced Monday a multi-year partnership that will see Apple&#39;s next-generation artificial intelligence features, including its Siri assistant, be powered by Google&#39;s Gemini technology.&nbsp;The collaboration marks a significant shift for Apple, which has traditionally developed its core technologies in-house.&nbsp;A joint statement said Apple selected Google&#39;s AI technology after a &quot;careful evaluation&quot; determined it provided &quot;the most capable foundation&quot; for the iPhone-maker&#39;s AI ambitions.&nbsp;The announcement represents a rare alliance between two companies that have long competed in the smartphone market, where Apple&#39;s iOS and Google&#39;s Android operating systems dominate globally.&nbsp;However, the two rivals have maintained a lucrative partnership for years, with Google paying Apple billions of dollars annually to remain the default search engine on iPhones and other Apple devices.&nbsp;That arrangement has faced scrutiny from regulators, with the US Justice Department arguing in an antitrust case that the deal helps Google maintain its search monopoly, though a judge said the arrangement could continue.&nbsp;Financial details of the AI arrangement were not provided.&nbsp;Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities said the partnership was &quot;a major validation moment for Google&quot; and &quot;a stepping stone&quot; for Apple to get its AI strategy on track into 2026 and beyond.&nbsp;Apple reportedly also considered partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity.&nbsp;The company co-founded by Steve Jobs is largely perceived to have stumbled in efforts to roll out AI capabilities across its products and last month announced the head of its artificial intelligence team was stepping down.&nbsp;Apple last year delayed the release of an improved Siri digital assistant and is now promising it for later in the year.&nbsp;Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and other tech rivals have been releasing ever-improved AI models and features in a fierce race to lead the sector.&nbsp;Despite the collaboration, Apple emphasized that its in-house AI system, Apple Intelligence, will be used to power its iPhones and iPads at the device-only level, maintaining what it described as &quot;industry-leading privacy standards.&quot;

Apple and Google announced a multi-year partnership to power Apple’s next-generation AI, including Siri, with Google’s Gemini, marking a rare alliance as Apple seeks to catch up in AI while stressing privacy and competition pressures.

Apple chooses Google's Gemini AI to power Siri

BERLIN: Google unveiled Tuesday its biggest-ever investment in Germany, pledging 5.5 billion euros ($6.4 billion) for a new data centre and other projects, as Europe seeks to catch up in the AI race.&nbsp;&quot;We are driving growth in Germany,&quot; Chancellor Friedrich Merz said as the investments, to be made by 2029, were announced.&nbsp;&quot;Our country is and will remain one of the most attractive places for investment in the world,&quot; he said.&nbsp;Google&#39;s plans include a new data centre and expansion of an existing centre in the western state of Hesse, providing computing power for artificial intelligence.&nbsp;It also plans to expand its offices in Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich, and outlined various projects aimed at reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.&nbsp;These included buying renewable wind and solar energy and a &quot;heat recovery project&quot; that would see excess heat produced by a data centre re-used by local residents.&nbsp;The plans will support around 9,000 jobs a year in Germany, Google said.&nbsp;The investments are a boost for Germany, whose economy is struggling, as well as for Europe it seeks to catch up with AI leaders the United States and China.

Google announced a record $6.4 billion investment in Germany by 2029, including new and expanded data centers, office growth, and green energy projects, creating about 9,000 jobs and supporting Europe’s push to advance in artificial intelligence.

Google unveils $6.4 bn investment in Germany

<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ALEXANDRIA:&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After deflecting the US Justice Department&#39;s attack on its illegal monopoly in online search, Google is facing another attempt to dismantle its internet empire in a trial focused on its abusive tactics in digital advertising. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The trial scheduled to begin Monday in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court will revolve around the harmful conduct that resulted in US District Judge Leonie Brinkema declaring parts of Google&#39;s digital advertising technology to be an illegal monopoly. The judge found that Google has been engaging in behavior that stifles competition to the detriment of online publishers that depend on the system for revenue. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google and the Justice Department will spend the next two weeks in court presenting evidence in a &ldquo;remedy&rdquo; trial that will culminate in Brinkema issuing a ruling on how to restore fair market conditions. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although the judge hasn&#39;t set a timetable for making that decision, it&#39;s unlikely to come down before the end of this year because additional legal briefs and courtroom arguments are expected to extend into November before Brinkema takes the matter under submission. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No matter how the judge rules, Google says it will appeal the earlier decision labeling the ad network as a monopoly. Appeals can&#39;t be filed until the remedy is determined. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The case, filed in 2023 under President Joe Biden&#39;s administration, threatens the complex network that Google has spent the past 17 years building to power its dominant digital advertising business. Besides accounting for most of the $305 billion in revenue that Google&#39;s services division generates for its corporate parent Alphabet Inc., digital advertising sales provide the lifeblood that keeps thousands of websites alive. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the Justice Department gets its way, Brinkema will order Google to sell parts of its ad technology &mdash; a proposal that the company&#39;s lawyers warned would &ldquo;invite disruption and damage&rdquo; to consumers and the internet&#39;s ecosystem. The Justice Department contends a breakup would be the most effective and quickest way to undercut a monopoly that has been stifling competition and innovation for years. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google believes it has already made enough changes to its &ldquo;Ad Manager&rdquo; system, including providing more options and pricing options, to resolve the issues the Brinkema flagged in her monopoly ruling. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The legal battle over Google&#39;s advertising technology mirrors another showdown that the company recently navigated after another federal judge condemned its dominant search engine as an illegal monopoly and then held remedy hearings earlier this year to consider how to stop the misconduct. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In that case, the Justice Department also proposed a severe crackdown that would have required Google to sell its popular Chrome browser, but US District Judge Amit Mehta decided a less dramatic shake-up was needed amid a search market being reshaped by artificial intelligence technology in a decision issued earlier this month.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even though Google didn&#39;t agree with all aspects of Mehta&#39;s decision, the ruling was widely seen as a slap on the wrist &mdash; a sentiment that has helped propel Alphabet&#39;s stock price to new highs. The 20% gain since Mehta&#39;s decision helped make Alphabet only the fourth publicly traded company to reach a market value of $3 trillion &mdash; an increase of more than $1 trillion since Brinkema branded Google&#39;s ad technology as a monopoly in April. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In an indication that the outcome of the search monopoly case might sway things in the advertising technology proceedings, Brinkema asked both Google and the Justice Department to address Mehta&#39;s decision during the upcoming trial.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As they did in the search case, Google&#39;s lawyers already have been asserting in court papers that AI technology being used by ad network rivals like Meta Platforms is reshaping the way the market works and overriding the need for the Justice Department&#39;s &ldquo;radical&rdquo; proposals. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Justice Department is &ldquo;fighting for a remedy that would vanquish a past that has been overtaken by technological and market transformations in the way digital ads are consumed,&quot; Google&#39;s lawyers argued leading up to the trial.

Google logo is seen on the Google house at CES 2024 

Gadgets

After deflecting the U.S. Justice Department's attack on its illegal monopoly in online search, Google is facing another attempt to dismantle its internet empire in a trial focused on its abusive tactics in digital advertising.

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