Trump seeks to toughen Biden’s chip controls over China, and ask key allies match China curbs the US has placed on American chip-gear companies. How will Japan and Netherland response to that? Can China's chip industry overtake the US?
Trump seeks to toughen Biden’s chip controls over China, and ask key allies match China curbs the US has placed on American chip-gear companies. How will Japan and Netherland response to that? Can China's chip industry overtake the US?
IN the beginning – well in 1993, to be specific – there was Mosaic .And it was good, or at least good enough. By 1995, however, Mosaic’s time was on the wane, and Netscape was people’s browser of choice. Three years later, Internet Explorer had taken the lead – and seemed poised to hold it forever.
There were challengers, of course. By 2008, Firefox was making a run at winning over the Internet but managed to find only half the audience of Internet Explorer. That was the case until 2012, when they both were left in the dust by
Google’s Chrome.
Other competitors, like Safari, Opera ,and Edge (a rename of Internet Explorer), had a brief moment in the sun, but never came close to market dominance. Today,
Chrome is still firmly in charge, holding a 67% market share as of January 2025.
If history has taught us anything when it comes to web browsers, though, it’s that people’s allegiances to how they navigate the World Wide Web are far from absolute.
The oft-changing nature of web browser leadership was modelled visually by James Eagle, a content creator with a background in the financial services sector.
Change could be in the air once again. Artificial intelligence (AI) companies are starting to focus on the Web, which could herald yet another paradigm shift.
Recently, Ai-powered search engine Perplexity teased plans to launch its own web browser called Comet. In a post on X, the company said the browser was “coming soon” and invited people to sign up for a waitlist. It did not offer details on what would make the browser unique or offer any mockups or footage of Comet.
Perplexity has been growing fast, though. Last October, CEO Aravind Srinivas announced on X that the search engine was serving 100 million queries per week.
And in December, the company closed a Us$500mil (Rm2.2bil) funding round (with backers including Nvidia and Jeff Bezos), taking its valuation to Us$9bil (Rm40bil).
Perplexity isn’t the only AI company looking at the browser market. Last November, Openai was reported to be working on its own Ai-infused web browser.
That came roughly a month after the CHATGPT maker integrated web search into its popular chatbot, keeping users inside the app.
The CHATGPT web-search integration wasn’t perfect and, at the moment, falls short of the definition of a browser, but it was good enough to hook Inc. tech columnist Jason Aten, who wrote, “for most of the things I’ve searched for this past week, CHATGPT has been a superior experience”.
Google is hardly surrendering without a fight. Chrome is an important part of its business these days; however, it’s hard to determine exactly how much revenue the browser contributes, as Alphabet includes it in the same category as Android, Youtube, and search in its earnings reports. Google also uses
Chrome’s browsing history to help target ads.
Last September, Google very quietly added its Gemini AI into
Chrome, letting users access it by typing @gemini in the browser’s query bar before their chatbot question. It has since expanded the offerings, letting people create custom themes with AI, changing their search backgrounds, and doing a deeper dive into their search history. Soon, it says, users will be able to compare information across multiple tabs with an Ai-generated overview.
This could be an ideal time for startups to make a run at Google’s browser market dominance, as the company is busy dealing with other hurdles. Google is awaiting sentencing, expected by August, after it received a guilty verdict in a search monopoly suit. And the US Department of Justice has announced its hopes to break up the company, forcing Alphabet to sell Chrome. Even if that happens, though, it will likely be years before the appeals process runs its course.
A second case, meanwhile, regarding Alphabet’s advertising technology, is awaiting a verdict. And China has launched its own antitrust probe into Google, in response to tariffs. Both US cases, however, were brought by the Biden administration – and the Trump administration may be less enthusiastic about pursuing them. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai recently attended Trump’s inauguration.
Regardless of what happens in those legal battles, though, well-funded competitors have
Chrome in their sights. And the status quo in web surfing could be about to change once again.
By CHRIS MORRIS, Tribune news serv
FILE PHOTO: OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration taken May 20, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
(Reuters) - Microsoft-backed OpenAI said on Tuesday it will roll out an education-specific version of its chatbot to about 500,000 students and faculty at California State University as it looks to expand its user base in the academic sector and counter competition from rivals like Alphabet .
The rollout will cover 23 campuses of the largest public university system in the United States, enabling students to access personalized tutoring and study guides through the chatbot, while the faculty will be able to use it for administrative tasks.
OpenAI has been looking to integrate ChatGPT into classrooms since 2023, even as initial concerns about its potential use for cheating and plagiarism had prompted some schools to consider bans.
Universities like the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas at Austin in the U.S., and the University of Oxford in the UK have already been using ChatGPT Enterprise, prompting OpenAI to launch ChatGPT Edu in May last year.
Rival Alphabet has already been expanding into the education sector, where it has announced a $120 million investment fund for AI education programs and plans to introduce its GenAI chatbot Gemini to teen students' school-issued Google accounts.
In November, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer opened London's first Google-funded AI university, which will provide older teens with access to resources in artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as mentorship and expertise from Google's AI company, DeepMind.
(Reporting by Rishi Kant in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)
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DeepSeek proves 'small yard, high fence' cannot hinder innovation: Global Times editorial
Using 20th-century geopolitical methods to address the technological revolution of the 21st century will only cause the US to miss valuable development opportunities. Whether it focuses on blockades and encirclements or seeks new ways to stand out from the competition will lead to entirely different outcomes.
PETALING JAYA: Experts are calling for a clear digital direction and quick implementation for the rollout of the dual 5G network and the MyDigital ID programme, saying that any delay is unacceptable if Malaysia were to position itself as the choice for leading industries and as Asean chairman. Malaysia, said Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (Fomca) vice-president Datuk Indrani Thuraisingham, must have the proper infrastructure to support such targets.
“Since we are championing artificial intelligence (AI) development, setting up more data centres and other related fields, it is fair for the relevant authorities as well as stakeholders to prepare the right infrastructure to support these initiatives.
“It is unacceptable to delay it further as it could have an impact on our country’s economy,” she said in an interview yesterday.
Malaysia has secured billions of ringgit in investment in the past year from global tech firms seeking to build critical infrastructure to cater to growing demand for their cloud and AI services.
The Star also reported that while the number of digital nomads in the country has doubled, Internet connectivity remains a major concern for them.Other countries such as China, pointed out Indrani, have even achieved a breakthrough in satellite-to-ground laser communications that could pave the way for sixth-generation wireless technology – or 6G – and other applications, including remote sensing with ultra-high resolution and next generation satellite positioning technology.
“They have gone beyond 5G and we need to keep up with them,” she said.
On Jan 2, China’s Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co, which owns Jilin-1, the world’s largest sub-metre commercial remote sensing satellite constellation, announced that it had achieved a 100 gigabit per second ultra-high-speed image data transmission rate in testing last weekend.
In terms of consumer rights, Indrani said industry players must deliver what they had promised to customers.
“Some of the customers are already paying for 5G connectivity and they need to deliver it.
“In certain places, even in Selangor and Klang Valley, we cannot get proper connectivity, and some still get 4G networks,” she said, adding that there are also complaints of dropped calls.
Malaysia Cyber Consumer Association president Siraj Jalil said any delay in the rollout of a dual 5G network and MyDigital ID programme only reflected the preparedness of the relevant authorities.
“We need to look back at the objectives of the initiative and why it is still delayed,” he added.
“Since (MyDigital ID) will be our future digital identity and represents our position in the digital landscape, the government needs to be clear on it, especially to the stakeholders which is the rakyat,” he said.
Citing the postponement in the integration of the MyDigital ID with the MyJPJ app, he said such disruptions create a bad perception to the users.
“If we cannot integrate our ID into a multi digital system, like JPJ, it shows that is not being set up properly,” he said, adding that this should be fixed
In October last year, MyDigital ID Sdn Bhd CEO Mohd Mirza Mohd Noor had explained that the integration of MyDigital ID with the MyJPJ app was not cancelled but merely postponed.
The delay, he explained, should be looked at as part of an overall strategy to ensure the success of this feature and to improve the user experience.
Sharing her own personal experience, civil servant Siti Nor Mardiah, 33, said a few months ago, the 5G network completely stopped working on her phone.
“When I called my mobile service provider, they said 5G comes under DNB, and not them. As a solution, they told me to use 4G instead. It has been months and I am still using 4G.
“The same goes for my home Wi-Fi, the 5G doesn’t work for some reason (and) 2.4G works better,” she said.
“What baffles me is that this is the situation in Kuala Lumpur, now I can’t imagine how the network is in rural areas.”
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THE republic has been named the world’s most innovative country, taking first place in a ranking of nations based on wide-ranging indicators such as workforce education level and new business creation rate.
It overtook the United States to top the latest Global Innovation Scorecard, a biennial ranking of 74 countries and the European Union that the Consumer Trade Association (CTA), a US trade body, has tabulated since 2019.
Out of 25 countries that were named global innovation champions, Singapore received the highest composite score, a jump from its 15th position in 2023.
Rounding off the top five innovative countries were the United States, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland.
Singapore was presented with the Global Innovation Champion award on Thursday at CES, the world’s largest tech fair where companies showcase their latest products and prototypes, in Las Vegas.
The exhibition, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, concluded yesterday.
CTA said its scorecard measures countries on the basis of their political, economic and demographic realities to see how well-placed they are to fuel tech innovation, with the latest edition evaluating countries on a wider range of metrics than before.
While the 2023 scorecard had 40 indicators, the latest one had 56, comprising a range of data sources from agencies such as the World Trade Organisation, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Singapore achieved top scores in four of the 16 categories measured: business environment resilience and data transparency; the pro-innovation nature of its legal environment; its friendliness towards start-ups and small businesses; and its tax policies for companies.
It also scored well in other categories, such as the ethnic and immigrant diversity of its workforce; openness to telehealth and cross-border data flows; and broadband speeds.
CTA chief executive officer Gary Shapiro said that the scorecard looked at whether countries have the conditions that catalyse their innovators to invent a better future.
“That means not just evaluating the investment in cutting-edge sectors or red tape for start-ups, but also recognising that countries that ensure freedom of speech create opportunities for workforce diversity and respect people’s fundamental freedoms.
“By celebrating the best of the best, our innovation champions, we encourage other countries to follow their lead,” he said.
As always, the countries that rank highest on the scorecard demonstrate the best of collaboration between government and industry, added Shapiro.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Enterprise Singapore said the country is proud to be the highest-scoring innovation champion of all the countries evaluated.
“This top honour recognises Singapore’s skilled workforce, advanced broadband connectivity, entrepreneurial climate and openness to new technologies,” it said. — The Straits Times/ANN
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