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NBR Reversed Decision to Impose Supplementary Duty on Call Rates, Internet Usage
Rtv News
17 Jan 2025, 20:37
Photo: Collected
In response to widespread criticism, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has reversed its decision to impose a supplementary duty on call rates, internet usage, and other information technology services.
NBR sources confirmed on Friday, January 17, that the supplementary duty on telecommunication services, such as call rates and mobile internet had been raised from 20% to 23%.
However, this increase will now be reduced back to the original rate of 20%. Additionally, the 10% supplementary duty on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) has been completely withdrawn. The reduction in VAT rates is expected to be formalized through an official notification in the coming days.
Badruzzaman Munshi, Second Secretary of NBR, commented, "The decision to hike VAT across various sectors has been reversed. The Revenue Board has taken the necessary actions, and we anticipate the SRO (Statutory Regulatory Order) will be issued by Sunday. Discussions are ongoing regarding other important products, but no decisions have been made yet."
This move comes after the NBR's January 9 announcement, which raised taxes on over a hundred products and services. The interim government faced significant backlash for increasing VAT on multiple items amid the ongoing inflation crisis.
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AI is Trained to Spot Warning Signs of Ovarian Cancer and Pneumonia
A revolutionary blood test leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a game-changer in diagnosing deadly diseases like ovarian cancer and pneumonia at their earliest stages.
Developed by Dr. Daniel Heller and his team at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the test utilizes nanotube technology—carbon tubes 50,000 times thinner than a human hair—to detect molecular reactions in blood samples.
These nanotubes emit specific wavelengths of fluorescent light when certain molecules attach to them. The patterns are so intricate that only AI, through machine learning algorithms, can decode them. Dr. Heller explained, “It’s like identifying molecular fingerprints too subtle for humans to detect.”
Ovarian cancer, often diagnosed late, spreads quickly. Audrey Moran, head of the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA), stressed that early detection could significantly lower mortality rates.
The AI algorithm, trained on limited patient data, has already shown remarkable accuracy despite challenges in gathering sufficient samples for this rare cancer.
Beyond cancer, AI is also revolutionizing pneumonia diagnosis. California-based company Karius uses AI to identify pathogens within 24 hours, eliminating the need for multiple costly tests.
Researchers are optimistic about making this technology widely available within 3–5 years, heralding a new era in medical diagnostics and lifesaving innovations.
WhatsApp to End Support for Older Android Phones From January 1
WhatsApp, owned by Meta, is one of the world's most popular messaging platforms. Millions of users worldwide rely on this app for sharing photos and videos, conducting polls, and more. Beyond personal use, the app is regularly utilized for business and office purposes.
WhatsApp will no longer be available on certain phones starting in 2025. Meta made this decision to align with new features, security updates, and compatibility with the latest hardware and software. The limitations of older operating systems and hardware are the primary reasons for this decision.
Phones That Will No Longer Support WhatsApp from January 2025:
Samsung
Galaxy S3
Galaxy Note 2
Galaxy Ace 3
Galaxy S4 Mini
Sony
Xperia Z
Xperia SP
Xperia T
Xperia V
Motorola
Moto G (1st Gen)
Razr HD
Moto E 2014
HTC
One X
One X+
Desire 500
Desire 601
LG
Optimus G
Nexus 4
G2 Mini
L90
Tesla Recalls Nearly 700,000 EVs For Tire-safety Issue
Due to issues with the tire pressure monitoring system's warning light, American Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturer Tesla has recalled nearly 700,000 vehicles.
The company stated that the warning light for the tire pressure monitoring system may fail to illuminate while driving, potentially failing to alert drivers about low tire pressure. This increases the risk of accidents on the road. As a result, Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck vehicles have been recalled.
According to British news outlet Sky News, Tesla will resolve the issue through a free software update.
Elon Musk's company announced that it would send letters to the owners of the defective vehicles by February 15, 2025.
This is not the first time Tesla has issued recalls. Throughout the year, the company has recalled various models multiple times. In July of this year, 1.8 million vehicles were recalled due to issues with the car's hood.
In February of this year, Tesla recalled about 2.2 million vehicles in the United States due to some warning lights on the instrument panel being too small.
NASA Probe Survives Record-breaking Close Approach to Sun
NASA scientists have announced that the Parker Solar Probe survived zooming by the sun at a record-breaking closest distance. The craft collected precious data which researchers say will aid work on solar wind, particles and the sun's atmosphere.
What we know about the mission
The mission was carried out by a team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.
"The team was out of contact with the spacecraft during closest approach, which occurred on Dec. 24, with Parker Solar Probe zipping just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface while moving about 430,000 miles per hour," Michael Buckley, spokesperson for the laboratory, said in a statement.
On December 26, the team received a signal from the probe indicating that it is in "good health and operating normally."
Scientists expect detailed data from the NASA-developed spacecraft on January 1.
About the probe
The craft was built to endure temperatures up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (about 980 degrees Celsius), enough to survive in the sun's outer atmosphere.
Launched in 2018, the probe's mission is to complete 24 orbits around the sun in seven years.
The close approach to the sun allowed the probe to collect measurements that will help scientists study how the sun's outer atmosphere gets "heated to millions of degrees," trace the flow of energy and discover how solar wind accelerates to near light speed.
Previous solar probes have helped researchers to understand the structures of solar wind and to map out the structure of the sun's atmosphere.
US Unveils Sweeping Cybersecurity Measures Over Alleged China-backed Salt Typhoon Campaign
US President Joe Biden's administration on Friday announced sweeping cybersecurity measures following revelations about Salt Typhoon, an alleged China-backed hacking campaign that infiltrated major US telecommunications companies.
The new steps include mandatory federal regulations for telecoms cybersecurity, enhanced guidance for securing networks and strengthened requirements for healthcare data protection.
Deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger stressed a need for urgent reforms to prevent future breaches.
"We wouldn't leave our homes or offices unlocked, yet our critical infrastructure often lacks the basic cybersecurity practices necessary to make it more defensible," she said.
The US intelligence community believes Salt Typhoon has been active since 2022 and exploited vulnerabilities in telecom infrastructure to access sensitive data, including geolocation, phone call records and text messages.
To date, nine telecoms companies have been identified as targets. Neuberger cited one case in which a single administrator account controlled access to more than 100,000 routers, giving hackers unfettered control.
While the exact number of affected customers is not yet known, investigations thus far have shown that "a large number of individuals were geolocated in the Washington, DC and Virginia area", she said.
The goal was to identify which phones were linked to government targets and then conduct espionage and intelligence gathering on text messages and calls.
"But they were very careful about their techniques," Neuberger explained. "They erase logs. In many cases, companies were also not keeping adequate logs. So there are details that we will never know regarding the scope and scale of this."
"That's why we're looking forward and saying, 'let's lock down our infrastructure', and frankly, let's hold the Chinese accountable for this."
The Chinese embassy in Washington on Friday pushed back against the allegations of a hacking campaign, with spokesperson Liu Pengyu calling them "smear attacks" made without evidence.
Liu referenced Chinese President Xi Jinping's direct denial of cyberattack claims during his meeting with Biden in Lima during the APEC summit, asserting that "China is itself a target of international cyber intrusions."
The embassy statement alluded to technical challenges in attributing cyber incidents, urging "relevant parties" to take a more "professional and responsible attitude" when making such accusations.
"The US needs to stop using cybersecurity to smear and slander China and stop spreading all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats," Liu said.
Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission, a US government agency, has proposed regulations requiring telecom companies to adopt minimum cybersecurity standards. The rules, set for a vote by mid-January, aim to close long-standing gaps.
"Without defensible networks, attackers will continue to exploit weaknesses, threatening national security and public trust," Neuberger said.
Updated technical guidance has also been released to help telecom providers harden their defences, focusing on network segmentation and configuration management to limit the impact of breaches.
"By segmenting the network, even if attackers gain access, their movement can be controlled and contained," she added.
Beyond telecommunications, the US Department of Health and Human Services plans to revise the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Security Rule for the first time since 2013.
Established in 1996, HIPAA sets nationwide standards for protecting patients' medical information. The law requires healthcare providers, insurance companies and their business partners to safeguard both paper and electronic health records while laying forth strict rules about how this sensitive data can be shared.
The updates will require entities handling healthcare data to implement encryption and stronger monitoring systems.
In highlighting the urgency of the revision, Neuberger cited a 1,002 per cent increase in Americans affected by healthcare data breaches over the past five years.
"The cost of not acting is not only high but endangers critical infrastructure and patient safety," she said. Recent breaches have cost organisations hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery expenses, Neuberger added.
Meta to Suspend Fact-Checking Amid Allegations of Bias
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday said the social media company is ending its fact-checking program and replacing it with a community-driven system similar to that of Elon Musk's X.
Zuckerberg cited the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election as underlying the decision, calling it a "cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech." Zuckerberg made the announcement in a video. "We're going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the U.S."
The changes will impact Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram — which have billions of users — as well as Threads.
The systems put in place to moderate its platforms make too many mistakes, Zuckerberg stated.
Meta introduced its fact-checking program in 2016 as part of an effort to curb misinformation. The initiative was launched in response to criticism over Facebook's role in spreading false claims during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A 2023 statement from Meta said the fact-checking program had "expanded to include nearly 100 organizations working in more than 60 languages globally."
Community trust
Meta does plan to continue to moderate content related to drugs, terrorism, child exploitation, frauds and scams, Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer and Clegg's successor, wrote in a statement on the Meta site. Facebook's trust and safety content moderation team is also moving from California to Texas and other U.S. locations, according to the note.
Kaplan also said entrusting users to effectively moderate Meta's social media platforms should benefit its content.
"We've seen this approach work on X — where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see," he wrote. "We think this could be a better way of achieving our original intention of providing people with information about what they're seeing — and one that's less prone to bias."
Meta said it would roll out its Community Notes approach over the next two month and continue refining it over the rest of the year. That will include no longer demoting content that users have fact-checked and including what Kaplan called "a much less obtrusive label" pointing people to additional information.
Preparing for Trump
The announcement came a day after Meta said former Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive Dana White, a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, would join its board, and shortly after former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg announced he was stepping down as president of global affairs.
Musk, a major supporter and financial backer of Trump during his presidential campaign, is thought to have the ear of the president-elect on issues ranging from how to slash federal spending to transportation policy.
Since Trump's November victory at the polls over Kamala Harris, Meta and other major technology companies have also sought to engender goodwill with the incoming administration. In December, for example, Meta donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund, while Zuckerberg dined with him at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Such gestures seemed aimed at repairing Meta's relations with Trump, which soured after Facebook banned him from Facebook following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021, when the company ruled that his posts on the platform had helped foster the violence that day.
"Meta is repositioning the company for the incoming Trump administration," Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at research firm Emarketer, said in an email. "The move will elate conservatives, who've often criticized Meta for censoring speech, but it will spook many liberals and advertisers, showing just how far Zuckerberg is willing to go to win Trump's approval."
(Source: CBS News)
Diamond-made Battery to Last for a Thousand Years on a Single Charge
In a groundbreaking achievement, scientists have developed the world's first diamond battery, capable of lasting an astonishing thousand years on a single charge. This innovative breakthrough, which has the potential to reshape the future of technology, was created by researchers from the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the University of Bristol.
The battery is made using Carbon-14, a radioactive isotope, and is known as Diamond Battery. It operates similarly to solar panels but instead of harnessing light, it converts electrons from the decay of Carbon-14 into electricity.
What makes this battery truly remarkable is not just its longevity, but its safety and versatility. It is suitable for a wide range of applications, including smartphones, household appliances, and critical medical devices like pacemakers, hearing aids, and eye implants. Patients would greatly benefit from this technology, as the battery would last the entire lifetime of the device without requiring replacement.
The implications for space exploration are equally significant. Unlike traditional batteries that fail in extreme conditions, the diamond battery can endure harsh environments, making it ideal for powering spacecraft, satellites, and scientific payloads for decades—or even centuries. A single charge could potentially sustain space missions for hundreds of years.
Despite its potential, questions regarding the cost of production remain. While experts are optimistic that advances in manufacturing will drive down prices, the current cost of such a high-tech battery may limit its accessibility to the general public.
Another impressive feature of the diamond battery is its environmental safety. Although it uses Carbon-14, the radioactive isotope is safely encased in artificial diamonds, posing no risk to the environment or users.
Researchers believe that this revolutionary battery technology could not only transform the energy sector but also offer solutions to many complex challenges in various fields. As production scales, diamond batteries could become a key player in the future of energy and technology.
