OpenAI claims Chinese rivals using its work, ‘Concorde’ successor breaks sound barrier
The maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI, has complained that rivals, including those in China, are using its work to make rapid advances in developing their own artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The status of OpenAI – and other US firms – as the world leaders in AI has been dramatically undermined this week by the sudden emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese app that can emulate the performance of ChatGPT, apparently at a fraction of the cost. Bloomberg has reported that Microsoft is investigating whether data belonging to OpenAI – which it is a major investor in – has been used in an unauthorised way. BBC
Experts have urged caution over rapidly embracing the Chinese artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek, citing concerns about it spreading misinformation and how the Chinese state might exploit users’ data. The government said its use was a personal choice for citizens, but officials were monitoring any national security threat to data from the new AI and said they would not hesitate to take action if threats emerged.The new low-cost AI wiped $1tn off the leading US tech stock index this week and it rapidly became the most downloaded free app in the UK and the US. The Guardian
A US company’s prototype jet has broken the sound barrier in a demonstration it hopes will pave the way for a successor to the Concorde. Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 is the first civilian aircraft to achieve the feat since the British-French supersonic airliner, which was retired in 2003. The XB-1 broke the sound barrier for the first time over the Mojave Desert in California. During the test flight, it reached an altitude of 35,000ft before accelerating to Mach 1.1 (844mph) – 10% faster than the speed of sound. Sky News
A British company is launching a smartphone app that can calculate the state of health of an electric car‘s drive battery. Costing around £30 and due to be launched in the coming weeks, Clearwatt’s EV Health Checker uses an EV’s connected car data and information from the driver’s smartphone to provide a detailed picture of its real-world efficiency and performance. The resulting report gives a grading for the EV’s battery health relative to a new vehicle and comparable vehicles; an estimate of its future battery degradation based on past performance; and a prediction of the car’s range in a variety of scenarios. Autocar
Smartwatch firm Garmin is facing a backlash after customers complained their devices were not working. Some users reported seeing a blue triangle when they tried to turn on their watch, while others were stuck on its start-up screen. Garmin’s Fenix 8 smartwatches, which retail for just under £1,000, are some of the devices to have issues – however not all watches are affected by the outage. The firm said on its website that it was aware of the issue affecting some of its users. The BBC has approached it for further comment. BBC
A new ultra-realistic phishing scam reported by a Google programmer could make a lot of us a little uneasy. Zach Latta, warned in a recent blog post, “Someone just tried the most sophisticated phishing attack I’ve ever seen. I almost fell for it. My mind is a little blown.” Starting with a phone call from the Caller ID ‘Google’, this phishing attempt was enough to convince a Google programmer into being one button press away from disaster – here’s what we know so far…Tech Radar
