Category: Technology

MILAN – The last person to get their hands on a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci shelled out more than $450 million at auction. Now, Italian cultural officials are making it possible to purchase a limited edition, certified digital copy of the Renaissance genius’ “Lady with Disheveled Hair’’ for roughly the price of a…

WASHINGTON – The holiday season is a time for giving thanks, giving gifts — and for many, a time for giving back. Food banks, services that deliver meals to seniors and other U.S. charities typically see a surge in volunteering between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. But there are good reasons to volunteer…

HONG KONG – China’s Alibaba Group posted a 34% jump in revenue from its cloud business in its most recent quarter, buoyed by the boom in artificial intelligence. But overall revenue at the Chinese tech group for the July-September quarter increased by just 5% year-on-year to 247.8 billion yuan ($35 billion), and profit fell 52%…

It’s been a difficult year for the people who create video games, with layoffs persisting while the tech industry tries to force us to use artificial intelligence for everything. But great games emerged nonetheless — and I can’t imagine AI ever being able to deliver the kind of thrilling, rewarding adventures we’ve seen in 2025….

They go by names like @TRUMP_ARMY— or @MAGANationX, and their verified accounts proudly display portraits of President Donald Trump, voter rallies and American flags. And they’re constantly posting about U.S. politics to their followers, sounding like diehard fans of the president. But after a weekend update to the social media platform X, it’s now clear…

Pope Leo XIV opened a virtual meeting with American Catholic young people Friday by revealing a closely held pontifical secret: He uses a different Wordle start word each day. Leo divulged his strategy for the popular New York Times online game before fielding questions via videoconference about artificial intelligence, social media and the future of…

TALLINN – When Russians look back at 2025, they might remember it as the year when the government took even tighter control of the internet. Credit cards that won’t buy a ticket on public transport. ATMs that don’t connect to a network. Messaging apps that are down. Cellphones that don’t receive texts or data after…

NEW YORK – Artificial intelligence pioneer Yann LeCun said Wednesday he will be leaving his job as Meta’s chief AI scientist at the end of the year. LeCun said he will be forming a startup company to pursue research on advanced forms of AI that can “understand the physical world, have persistent memory, can reason,…

MELBOURNE – Technology giant Meta on Thursday began sending thousands of young Australians a two-week warning to downland their digital histories and delete their accounts from Facebook, Instagram and Threads before a world-first social media ban on accounts of children younger than 16 takes effect. The Australian government announced two weeks ago that the three…

The tech industry is moving fast and breaking things again — and this time it is humanity’s shared reality and control of our likeness before and after death — thanks to artificial intelligence image-generation platforms like OpenAI’s Sora 2. The typical Sora video, made on OpenAI’s app and spread onto TikTok, Instagram, X and Facebook,…