Portage la Prairie Mayor Sharilyn Knox recently shared her thoughts on the province’s Throne Speech, emphasizing the speech’s broad focus on issues that impact both the city and rural communities. Knox, who attended the speech at the Manitoba Legislative Building on November 19th, described it as inclusive, covering a wide array of topics important to local governments and citizens. “The Throne Speech provides a great opportunity to understand the province’s priorities,” Knox said. “It covers everything from healthcare to environmental concerns, and it’s always an honour to be invited to listen.” A key highlight for Knox was the mention of healthcare priorities. As she noted, healthcare is a crucial issue for all Manitobans, and she appreciated hearing about the province’s continued focus on improving services. “For municipalities, we heard about a focus on autonomy and collaboration, both of which are important to us,” Knox added. The speech also brought attention to environmental initiatives, including a significant mention of Portage la Prairie. Knox was pleased to see the region’s potential involvement in the development of a sustainable aviation fuel facility. “Portage la Prairie got a shout-out regarding environmental and climate initiatives,” Knox said. “The province is investing in this project, and we’re hopeful that a decision will be made soon.” Knox also highlighted the discussion around journalism and the importance of ensuring information reaches smaller and rural communities. “It was interesting to hear about the push for better information access in rural areas,” she said. “I think it’s something we’ll need to follow up on.” Beyond the speech itself, Knox noted the value of building relationships with provincial ministers. She had the chance to meet with the new Municipal and Northern Relations Minister, Glen Simard, as well as Minister of Health, Minister Uzoma Asagwara. “It’s always valuable to connect with ministers in person,” Knox remarked. “I spoke with Minister Asagwara about our new hospital, and we discussed staffing needs. They mentioned that they learned a lot during their visit.” The topic of healthcare technology also came up, specifically the province’s plans for a mobile MRI unit. While the province has already outlined plans for this mobile service in northern Manitoba, Knox expressed hope that such initiatives would benefit rural areas as well. “Mobile MRI units are a great example of how technology can make a real difference,” Knox said. “We’ve seen how mobile mammograms have saved lives across the province, and we’re hopeful that mobile MRIs can have the same impact.” Knox also emphasized the importance of ongoing dialogue with the province to ensure that Portage la Prairie and other rural communities receive the attention and resources they need. “We’re excited about the future and looking forward to continued discussions on issues that matter to us,” she said.Dole: Release 13th month pay before Christmas eve
LEE Mack's The 1% Club has returned for a festive special, with Christmas themed questions already catching out contestants. The ITV show sees contestants faced with questions designed to test how their brain works, rather than their intelligence level. 4 The festive special of The 1% Club saw many Christmas themed questions Credit: ITV 4 The second question stumped contestants, with 28 knocked out by the spot the difference Credit: ITV They have to use their logic, reasoning and common sense as they are whittled down to one final question that only 1% of the country can answer correctly. This is all in an effort to try and take home the jackpot prize of up to £100,000. This year's Christmas special featured festive themed questions, but it wasn't long before those trying to win the money were stumped. With the second question focusing on a Christmas 'spot the difference', viewers at home were left stunned to find that 28 contestants had failed to get the answer right. More on The 1% Club SHAPE UP The 1% Club viewers gobsmacked as ‘easy’ question catches out contestants quizzed off 1% Club fans slam ‘trick question’ & insist answer is wrong - could you get it? The question pictured a festive scene where contestants had to spot what was differing between the two, with the answer being a missing pair of Santa's legs. Taking to X, one viewer wrote: " 28 people getting the second question wrong!" Another shared: "28 people. Wow". "What on earth were those 28 people looking at?" asked another baffled viewer. Most read in News TV CHRISTMAS JOY Lorraine Kelly shares sweet snap of granddaughter Billie's first Christmas NO PLACE LIKE HOME Lorraine Kelly shares plans to quit England with her daughter HOLYROOD HONOUR Strictly Come Dancing champion given special honour in Scottish parliament OH MY WORD Scots Countdown contestant is first woman to be crowned champion in 26 years This wasn't the only question that viewers at home were shocked to see the contestants struggling with, as some questioned whether the Christmas special quiz had been made 'easier'. One viewer shared on social media: "these questions are exceptionally easy . how anyone’s getting them wrong i’ll never know." Furious The 1% Club viewers slam show for ‘trick question’ and insist the answer was wrong - would you have got it? Another simply put: "Too easy." The festive special sees comedian Lee Mack back at the helm of the quiz show, which won Best Quiz Game Show for the third year in a row at the NTA Awards. The series has also been recommissioned for a fifth series , with ITV bringing back the show for this festive special and also a charity one for Soccer Aid . A source previously told us: "The show has well and truly proved its popularity with viewers, and so it’s only natural to bring it back for not one, but two more rounds. "This will also include two Christmas specials, which will air on ITV after the main series have run." Previous episodes of The 1% Club are available on ITVX. 4 The answer was Santa's legs were missing in the second image Credit: ITV 4 Lee Mack returned to present the festive special of the ITV quiz show Credit: ITVMinimum wage set to increase next week in Aruba and Curacao
Baidu’s robotaxi division, , just rolled out its latest robotaxi across multiple cities in China, and if stakeholders in the US aren’t nervous yet, they should be. The RT6 is the sixth generation of Apollo Go’s driverless vehicle, which made its official debut in May 2024. It’s a purpose-built, Level 4 autonomous vehicle, meaning it’s built without the need for a human driver. And here’s the thing that should make US competitors nervous: adopting a battery-swapping solution, the price for one individual RT6 is “under $30,000,” Baidu CEO Robin Li said in . “All the strengths just mentioned above are driving us forward, paving the way to validate our business model,” Li added. Adopting a battery-swapping solution, the price for one individual RT6 is “under $30,000” With Alphabet’s Waymo operating in multiple cities in the US and Baidu deploying hundreds of vehicles in China, the world is now getting its first taste of an autonomous future. These vehicles are geofenced, meaning they can only operate in a select geographic area. And sure, they occasionally get confused or block traffic. But they’re real, and they’re growing in number. But it’s Baidu’s achievements in cost-effectiveness that should have Waymo and other robotaxi operators a little uncomfortable. Because while the technology is growing more mature, the economics of a robotaxi business are still very much unproven. We still don’t know the net effect of Baidu’s cost improvements. But bringing down the upfront cost of each individual vehicle to below $30,000 will go a long way toward improving the company’s unit economics, in which each vehicle brings in more money than it costs. There are still a lot of outstanding costs to consider, such as hardware depreciation and fleet maintenance, but from what Baidu is signaling, things are on the right track. From the looks of it, the company is passing those savings along to its customers. Base fares start as low as 4 yuan (around 55 cents), compared with 18 yuan (around $2.48) for a taxi driven by a human, according to . Apollo Go said it has provided 988,000 rides across all of China in Q3 2024 — a year-over-year growth of 20 percent. And cumulative public rides reached 8 million in October. With Waymo, we just don’t know. The company has spoken publicly about its efforts to reduce the costs of each vehicle by . But its latest vehicle, Geely’s Zeekr, is on imports from China. found the company’s business in San Francisco to be profitable, while also estimating capital expenditures for the vehicle and sensor suite to be north of $150,000 per unit. Lowering costs is going to be increasingly important for robotaxi companies as they look to expand to new cities. Alphabet doesn’t break out Waymo’s costs in its earnings report, but its “Other Bets” unit, which includes the robotaxi company, brought in $388 million in revenue in the , up from $297 million a year ago. But the unit’s losses held flat at $1.12 billion compared to $1.94 billion in the year-earlier period. Alphabet recently led for Waymo to help it cover costs as it eyes its next phase of growth. We know the technology works, but for driverless cars to have a real chance, we need to see evidence that it can make money, too. /
AP Trending SummaryBrief at 3:22 p.m. EST
TikTok Shop Holiday Spending Jumps Despite Ban Threat'I braved the Trafford Centre on Boxing Day and something has definitely changed'
Mandaue rally: Dismissed Mayor Cortes’s backers call for justiceIsrael strikes Houthi rebels in Yemen's capital while the WHO chief says he was meters away
No. 1 South Carolina Upset by No. 5 UCLA; Snaps Gamecocks' 43-Game Winning Streak
Major Banks Support Financing For Robbiki Leather City FactoriesJoin our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More It is now just over two years since the first appearance of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. At the time of its launch, OpenAI viewed ChatGPT as a demonstration project designed to learn how people would make use of the tool and the underlying GPT 3.5 large language model (LLM). A LLM is a model based on the transformer architecture first introduced by Google in 2017, which uses self-attention mechanisms to process and generate human-like text across tasks like natural language understanding. It was more than a successful demonstration project! OpenAI was as surprised as anyone by the rapid uptake of ChatGPT, which reached one hundred million users within two months. Although perhaps they should not have been so surprised. Futurist Kevin Kelly, also the co-founder of Wired , advised in 2014 that “the business plans of the next 10,000 startups are easy to forecast: Take X and add AI. This is a big deal, and now it’s here.” Kelly said this several years before ChatGPT. Yet, this is exactly what has happened. Equally remarkable is his prediction in the same Wired article that: “By 2024, Google’s main product will not be search but AI.” It could be debated if this is true, but it might soon be. Gemini is Google’s flagship AI chat product, but AI pervades its search and likely every other one of its products, including YouTube, TensorFlow and AI features in Google Workspace. The bot heard around the world The headlong rush of AI startups that Kelly foresaw really gained momentum after the ChatGPT launch. You could call it the AI big bang moment, or the bot heard around the world. And it jumpstarted the field of generative AI — the broad category of LLMs for text and diffusion models for image creation. This reached the heights of hype, or what Gartner calls “The Peak of Inflated Expectations” in 2023. The hype of 2023 may have diminished, but only by a little. By some estimates , there are as many as 70,000 AI companies worldwide, representing a 100% increase since 2017. This is a veritable Cambrian explosion of companies pursuing novel uses for AI technology . Kelly’s 2014 foresight about AI startups proved prophetic. If anything, huge venture capital investments continue to flow into startup companies looking to harness AI. The New York Times reported that investors poured $27.1 billion into AI start-ups in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2024 alone, “accounting for nearly half of all U.S. start-up funding in that period.” Statista added : “In the first nine months of 2024, AI-related investments accounted for 33% of total investments in VC-backed companies headquartered in the U.S. That is up from 14% in 2020 and could go even higher in the years ahead.” The large potential market is a lure for both the startups and established companies. Hype does not equal use, at least not immediately A recent Reuters Institute survey of consumers indicated individual usage of ChatGPT was low across six countries, including the U.S. and U.K. Just 1% used it daily in Japan, rising to 2% in France and the UK, and 7% in the U.S. This slow uptake might be attributed to several factors, ranging from a lack of awareness to concerns about the safety of personal information. Does this mean AI’s impact is overestimated? Hardly, as most of the survey respondents expected gen AI to have a significant impact on every sector of society in the next five years. The enterprise sector tells quite a different story. As reported by VentureBeat , industry analyst firm GAI Insights estimates that 33% of enterprises will have gen AI applications in production next year. Enterprises often have clearer use cases, such as improving customer service, automating workflows and augmenting decision-making, which drive faster adoption than among individual consumers. For example, the healthcare industry is using AI for capturing notes and financial services is using the technology for enhanced fraud detection. GAI further reported that gen AI is the leading 2025 budget priority for CIOs and CTOs. What’s next? From gen AI to the dawn of superintelligence The uneven rollout of gen AI raises questions about what lies ahead for adoption in 2025 and beyond. Both Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman suggest that artificial general intelligence (AGI) — or even superintelligence — could appear within the next two to 10 years, potentially reshaping our world. AGI is thought to be the ability for AI to understand, learn and perform any intellectual task that a human being can, thereby emulating human cognitive abilities across a wide range of domains. Sparks of AGI in 2025 As reported by Variety , Altman said that we could see the first glimmers of AGI as soon as 2025. Likely he was talking about AI agents, in which you can give an AI system a complicated task and it will autonomously use different tools to complete it. For example, Anthropic recently introduced a Computer Use feature that enables developers to direct the Claude chatbot “to use computers the way people do — by looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons and typing text.” This feature allows developers to delegate tasks to Claude, such as scheduling meetings, responding to emails or analyzing data, with the bot interacting with computer interfaces as if it were a human user. In a demonstration, Anthropic showcased how Claude could autonomously plan a day trip by interacting with computer interfaces — an early glimpse of how AI agents may oversee complex tasks. In September, Salesforce said it “is ushering in the third wave of the AI revolution, helping businesses deploy AI agents alongside human workers.” They see agents focusing on repetitive, lower-value tasks, freeing people to focus on more strategic priorities. These agents could enable human workers to focus on innovation, complex problem-solving or customer relationship management. With features like Computer Use capabilities from Anthropic and AI agent integration by Salesforce and others, the emergence of AI agents is becoming one of the most anticipated innovations in the field. According to Gartner , 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI by 2028, up from less than 1% in 2024, enabling 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously. While enterprises stand to gain significantly from agentic AI, the concept of “ambient intelligence” suggests an even broader transformation, where interconnected technologies seamlessly enhance daily life. In 2016, I wrote in TechCrunch about ambient intelligence, as a “digital interconnectedness to produce information and services that enhance our lives. This is enabled by the dynamic combination of mobile computing platforms, cloud and big data, neural networks and deep learning using graphics processing units (GPUs) to produce artificial intelligence (AI).” At that time, I said that connecting these technologies and crossing the boundaries necessary to provide seamless, transparent and persistent experiences in context will take time to realize. It is fair to say that eight years later, this vision is on the cusp of being realized. The five levels of AGI Based on OpenAI’s roadmap, the journey to AGI involves progression through increasingly capable systems, with AI agents (level 3 out of 5) marking a significant leap toward autonomy. Altman stated that the initial impact of these agents will be minimal. Although eventually AGI will “be more intense than people think.” This suggests we should expect substantial changes soon that will require rapid societal adjustments to ensure fair and ethical integration. How will AGI advances reshape industries, economies, the workforce and our personal experience of AI in the years to come? We can surmise that the near-term future driven by further AI advances will be both exciting and tumultuous, leading to both breakthroughs and crises. Balancing breakthroughs and disruptions Breakthroughs could span AI-enabled drug discovery, precision agriculture and practical humanoid robots. While breakthroughs promise transformative benefits, the path forward is not without risks. The rapid adoption of AI could also lead to significant disruptions, notably job displacement. This displacement could be large, especially if the economy enters a recession , when companies look to shed payroll but remain efficient. If this were to occur, social pushbacks on AI including mass protests are possible. As the AI revolution progresses from generative tools to autonomous agents and beyond, humanity stands on the cusp of a new era. Will these advancements elevate human potential, or will they present challenges we are not yet prepared to face? Likely, there will be both. In time, AI will not just be part of our tools — it will seamlessly integrate into the fabric of life itself, becoming ambient and reshaping how we work, connect and experience the world. Gary Grossman is EVP of technology practice at Edelman and global lead of the Edelman AI Center of Excellence. DataDecisionMakers Welcome to the VentureBeat community! DataDecisionMakers is where experts, including the technical people doing data work, can share data-related insights and innovation. If you want to read about cutting-edge ideas and up-to-date information, best practices, and the future of data and data tech, join us at DataDecisionMakers. You might even consider contributing an article of your own! Read More From DataDecisionMakersChina okays mega dam in Tibet's high seismic zone
Trump Calls For Immediate Ceasefire In Ukraine, Suggests US Withdrawal From NATO