What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X?

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Written by alib

Category: Americas

Published: 25 July 2023

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NEW YORK - Elon Musk’s plan to build an “everything app” is underway. After rebranding Twitter to X, the tech billionaire encouraged users to rethink the “whole concept” of what the platform is.

Before he even purchased Twitter in October 2022, Mr Musk said that buying the site was an “accelerant” to creating a super app akin to China’s WeChat, India’s PayTM and Indonesia’s GoJek. These apps offer users the ability to not just make posts, but also send and receive payments, watch and listen to content, and even access services like booking taxis or ordering food deliveries.

Earlier this month, Mr Musk reportedly secured money-transmitting licenses in three US states, suggesting it is already preparing to become a payments business.

Linda Yaccarino, who took over as the chief executive of Twitter last month, gave more details about what the new X app will become, tweeting on Sunday that the rebranding was part of the company’s goal to “transform the global town square” beyond a social network.

“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centred in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” she tweeted.

“For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfil our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting started.”

X did not respond to a request for further information from The Independent about when such changes might take place. Shortly before his takeover of Twitter was complete, Mr Musk tweeted: “Twitter probably accelerates X by three to five years, but I could be wrong.”

Mr Musk has had access to the X.com domain since 2000, during which time he was working on PayPal. Before rebranding Twitter, the website simply showed the letter ‘X’, but now redirects to Twitter.com.

Earlier this year, Twitter changed its business name to X Corp to align with Mr Musk’s “everything app” vision, but social media experts have questioned whether such a concept could ever work outside of Asia.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” industry commentator Matt Navarra said at the time of Mr Musk’s takeover.

“Super apps, as they are known in the industry, are not a new thing. They’ve been hugely successful in Asia, but have not really caught on elsewhere. Could Twitter form part of a super app that lets you buy goods, chat to friends, get news updates, book a taxi etc.? Sure. Can Elon Musk make it work? Possibly. Will Elon actually do it? Who knows. He seems to have commitment issues.”

Others have raised concerns about whether ditching the Twitter brand and associated bird logo could further damage the platform’s reputation, which has been under heavy scrutiny since Mr Musk’s takeover last year.

Heatwaves: world reels from wildfires, floods as US and China discuss climate crisis

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 18 July 2023

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By Liliana Salgado

PHOENIX, USA - Asia, Europe and the United States baked under extreme heat on Monday as global temperatures soared toward alarming highs and U.S. leaders sought to reignite climate diplomacy with China.

The United States was scorched by record-setting heat in the West and South, lashed with flood-triggering rain in the Northeast, and choked by wildfire smoke in the Midwest.

A heat dome parked over the western United States pushed the temperature in California's Death Valley desert to 128 Fahrenheit (53 Celsius) on Sunday, among the highest temperatures recorded on Earth in the past 90 years.

The U.S. heatwave coincided with extreme temperatures elsewhere throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

A remote town in China's arid northwest, Sanbao, registered a national record of 52.2C (126F). Wildfires in Europe raged ahead of a second heat wave in two weeks that was set to send temperatures as high as 48C (118F), while authorities in Italy and France issued heat-related health warnings.

Even in Phoenix, accustomed to hot weather, the prolonged bout of extreme heat is testing people and worrying officials. The international charitable organization Salvation Army has opened 11 cooling centers and sent out a mobile unit to deliver relief to homeless people who have difficulty reaching the sites.

"Extreme heat is Arizona's natural disaster. So for the Salvation Army, this is a disaster response," said Scott Johnson, a spokesperson for the organization in the U.S. Southwest.

The heat killed 425 people in the Phoenix-area's Maricopa County last year, so the Salvation Army mobile unit distributes urgently needed cold water, hats, sunscreen and hygiene kits to those in need.

"It feels like you're inside of a dryer, the dryer at the laundromat. And it's suffocating," said Cristina Hill, an unhoused woman who benefited from the outreach on Monday and said she suffered a heat stroke last year. "I cry all the time. I yell at the heat."

Another unhoused woman, Maritza Villegas, said she has gotten shaky and jittery from the heat, which provoked dry heaves.

"This means a whole lot - the world - because without water I'd be in the hospital right now," Villegas said of the assistance.

Scientists have long warned that climate change, caused by CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, will make heatwaves more frequent, severe and deadly. They say governments need to take drastic actions to reduce omissions to prevent climate catastrophe.

The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service says 2022 and 2021 were the continent's hottest summers on record.

U.S., CHINA IN CLIMATE TALKS

The extreme global temperatures underscored the urgency in talks that resumed between China and the United States on climate change, especially as scientists say the target of keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels is moving beyond reach.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry met Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua in Beijing, urging joint action to cut methane emissions and coal-fired power.

"In the next three days, we hope we can begin taking some big steps that will send a signal to the world about the serious purpose of China and the United States to address a common risk, threat, challenge to all of humanity created by humans themselves," Kerry said.

"It is toxic for both Chinese and for Americans and for people in every country on the planet."

Prolonged high temperatures in China are threatening power grids and crops and raising concerns about a repeat of last year's drought, the most severe in 60 years.

Typhoon Talim was gaining strength and due to make land at night along China's southern coast, forcing the cancellation of flights and trains in the regions of Guangdong and Hainan.

In South Korea, torrential rains left 40 people dead as river levees collapsed causing flash floods. They followed the heaviest recorded rain in the capital Seoul last year.

EUROPEAN HEATWAVE UNRELENTING

An unrelenting heatwave continued in Europe as well.

Italy's health ministry on Monday issued red weather alerts - signaling a possible health threat for anyone exposed to the heat - for 20 of the country's 27 main cities on Tuesday, with the number expected to rise to 23 on Wednesday.

France's public health agency said the current stretch of hot weather would probably hospitalize or kill "many" people, as heat waves have done almost every summer since 2015. The World Meteorological Organization said the extreme heat and rainfall was expected to extend into August.

"In many parts of the world, today is predicted to be the hottest day on record," tweeted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation.

"The #ClimateCrisis is not a warning. It's happening. I urge world leaders to ACT now."

As many as 61,000 people may have died in Europe during heatwaves last summer, with a repetition feared this season.

"My worry is really health - the health of vulnerable people who live just below the rooftops of houses which are not prepared for such high temperatures," said Robert Vautard, a climate scientist and director of France's Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute. "That could create a lot of deaths."

US to send thousands of controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 08 July 2023

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WASHINGTON - The US has confirmed it will send thousands of controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine to help the country’s fight-back against Russia.

More than two-thirds of NATO members have banned the weapons due to their track record for causing many civilian casualties.

The munitions — which are bombs that open in the air and release scores of smaller ‘bomblets’ — leave behind unexploded rounds, which often cause unintended civilian deaths.

Confirming on Friday the US will be sending the weapons to Ukraine, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan acknowledged the risk they pose but said Kyiv has promised to use them carefully.

He said the US will send a version of the munition that has a reduced “dud rate,” meaning fewer of the smaller bomblets fail to explode.

“We recognise the cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance,” he told a White House briefing.

“This is why we’ve deferred the decision for as long as we could. But there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians, because Ukraine does not have enough artillery. That is intolerable to us.”

Cluster munitions are seen by the US as a way to get Kyiv critically needed ammunition to help bolster its offensive and push through Russian front lines.

US leaders debated the thorny issue for months, before Mr Biden made the final decision this week.

The news on Friday on came on the eve of the NATO summit in Lithuania, where President Joe Biden is likely to now face questions from allies on the controversial move.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, some cluster munitions leave behind bomblets that have a high rate of failure to explode — up to 40 per cent in some cases.

The rate of unexploded ordnance for the munitions that will be going to Ukraine is under three per cent, and therefore will mean fewer unexploded bombs left behind to potentially harm civilians.

A convention banning the use of cluster bombs has been joined by more than 120 countries that agreed not to use, produce, transfer or stockpile the weapons and to clear them after they’ve been used.

The United States, Russia and Ukraine are among those who have not signed on.

The cluster munitions are included in a new $800 million package of military aid the US will send to Ukraine.

The weapons will give Ukraine a highly lethal capability and also allow them to strike more Russian targets using fewer rounds.

So far the reactions from NATO allies have been muted.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stressed on Friday that the military alliance takes no position on cluster munitions and it is a decision that allies will make. And Germany, which has signed the ban treaty, said it won’t provide the bombs to Ukraine, but expressed understanding for the American position.

“We’re certain that our US friends didn’t take the decision about supplying such ammunition lightly,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin.

“We need to remember once again that Russia has already used cluster ammunition at a large scale in its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.”

Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who has been advocating that Washington send more weapons, noted that Ukrainian forces have had to disable mines from much of the territory they are winning back from Russia. As part of that process, Ukrainians will also be able to catch any unexploded ordnance from cluster munitions.

“We will have to de-mine anyway, but it’s better to have this capability,” Ms Ustinova said.

The last large-scale American use of cluster bombs was during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to the Pentagon. But US forces considered them a key weapon during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, according to Human Rights Watch. In the first three years of that conflict, it is estimated the US-led coalition dropped more than 1,500 cluster bombs in Afghanistan.

Proponents of banning cluster bombs say they kill indiscriminately and endanger civilians long after their use. Marta Hurtado, speaking for the UN human rights office, said on Friday “the use of such munitions should stop immediately and not be used in any place.”

“We will urge the Russian Federation and Ukraine to join the more than 100 states that have ratified the convention of cluster munitions and that effectively ban their use,” she added.