Microsoft is to open 4 data storage centers in France to meet strong customer demand for cloud computing, the head of the software giant's French operations told the Agence France-Presse on Tuesday, January 23.

"There's strong demand from our clients. A lot of them prefer to have (cloud computing) infrastructures and their data in their home territory," Carlo Purassanta said.

He did not reveal the size of the planned investment, but said that 3 of the centers would be located in the Paris region and the fourth in Marseille.

France would become the fourth European country – after Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands – to host Microsoft cloud data storage facilities.

The centers would be opened by the end of this quarter, it added.

Companies that hadn't yet moved into cloud computing "are those which were waiting for the arrival of data storage facilities in France," Purassanta said.

"We already have several thousand that have signed up for the centres," he said.

Microsoft, which opened its "AI Factory" at the Station F startup campus in Paris last year to mentor young companies specialising in artificial intelligence, said that six more startups had joined the programme.

The group said it was also planning to open a college specialising in AI at its French headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux.

Other hi-tech firms, such as Google and SAP have also announced major investments in France, particularly in the areas of AI and startups, this week.

President Emmanuel Macron invited 140 multinational business leaders to a gathering at the Versailles chateau near Paris on Monday.

Source: AFP

Facebook's Instagram and the Google+ social network have agreed to join an EU-sponsored group of US internet giants to combat online extremism, EU officials said Friday.

EU officials added that the existing members -- YouTube, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook -- have made progress toward meeting the code of conduct they signed up to in May 2016, promising to look at suspicious content within 24 hours and remove illegal material.

"Instagram has decided to join forces in the fight against illegal online hate speech and will now also apply the code of conduct," EU Justice and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Vera Jourova told reporters.

"And this morning I also received the message that Google+ is joining," she added.

The EU joined forces with US-based internet firms nearly two years ago amid growing alarm in Europe over the use of social media as a recruiting tool, especially by the Islamic State group.

Jourova said Friday she would continue having the industry regulate itself under the code of conduct after hailing progress among the internet firms to remove threatening material.

The commission said IT firms removed 70 percent of the illegal speech notified to them in the last few months, compared to 59 percent before May 2017, and 28 percent in the months after the code of conduct was launched.

Jourova also said Facebook had hired 3,500 new staff to fight online hate speech on top of the 4,500 existing employees.

She added that IT firms have also strengthened cooperation with civil society organisations, including training, to better detect and report suspected cases of hate speech.

"Having these quite positive results of this third assessment, I will be stronger in promoting my view that we should continue the way of doing this through the code of conduct method," Jourova said before meeting EU ministers of justice next week in Sofia.

The leaders of EU states last year urged internet firms to do their utmost to combat online extremism or face the possibility of legislation if the industry self-regulation fails. The Commission is the executive and regulatory arm of the 28-nation EU.

Source: AFP

 Aerospace company Rocket Lab said Sunday it had successfully fired a rocket into orbit for the first time from its New Zealand launch base.

"Electron is orbital. Successful payload deployment," the company tweeted.

The Electron rocket, named "Still Testing", took off from Mahia, on the east coast of the North Island, at 2.45pm (0145 GMT) on Sunday and reached orbit eight minutes later.

The 17-metre-long (55ft 7in) carbon-fibre rocket is carrying three satellites into space -- one to take images of Earth for United States company Planet Labs, and two to capture weather and ship tracking data for Spire Global.

"Speechless. Just like that, @rocketlab reaches orbit and sets a new bar for launch by reaching orbit on just their 2nd test," satellite-powered data company Spire tweeted.

Rocket Lab conducted its first launch last May when the firm put a rocket into space, but it did not reach orbit.

Although New Zealand-founded, Rocket Lab lists itself as an American company with headquarters at a wholly-owned New Zealand subsidiary.

Backers include US companies Khosla Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Lockheed Martin, Promus Ventures and Data Collective.

The company says its mission is to provide "frequent launch opportunities to low Earth orbit" with a range of rocket systems and technologies "for fast and affordable payload deployment".

Rocket Lab launch services with Electron are reported to cost US$4.9 million per flight.

Source: AFP

 Jeanette Epps, 46, a former CIA agent turned astronaut, was about to become the first African-American to embark on a mission lasting several months at the International Space Station.

It's still unclear why, but plans for her June liftoff suddenly changed, and another astronaut was chosen in her place, NASA has announced.

"A number of factors are considered when making flight assignments; these decisions are personnel matters, for which NASA doesn't provide information," US space agency spokeswoman Brandi Dean said in an email to AFP on Friday.

"Epps has returned to the active astronaut corps at Johnson Space Center to assume duties in the astronaut office," Dean added.

"She will be considered for assignment to future missions."

Epps was supposed to blast off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan in June, to serve as a flight engineer on the ISS as part of Expedition 56, and remaining on board for Expedition 57. Each expedition's tour of duty typically lasts three months.

It would have been the New York native's first trip to space, and the first long-duration stay at the orbiting outpost by an African-American.

Six other African-American astronauts have traveled to the space station, but those were shorter missions during the space shuttle era when the ISS was being assembled.

NASA announced in a statement late Thursday that Serena Aunon-Chancellor, who was initially meant to fly on a later mission, will launch in June instead of Epps.

Aunon-Chancellor "joined the astronaut corps in 2009 and has been at NASA since 2006, when she became a flight surgeon," according to her biography.

"Before being selected as an astronaut, she spent more than nine months in Russia supporting medical operations for space station crew members, including water survival training in the Ukraine, and served as the deputy lead for medical operations for NASA's Orion spacecraft."

Epps earned her doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland in 2000.

"She spent seven years as a CIA technical intelligence officer before being selected as a member of the 2009 astronaut class," her biography says.

Source: AFP

The European Space Agency (ESA) is drawing up contingency plans for projects, commercial deals, and staffing that may be adversely affected by Brexit, senior officials said Wednesday.

Programmes throw in flux by Britain's pending departure from the European Union (EU) include the Copernicus satellite constellation to monitor environmental damage, and the Galileo satellite navigation system.

"It is not an easy situation at all, I can tell you. We are going through the options," Josef Aschbacher, director of ESA's Earth observation activities, told journalists in Paris.

"What we have to do as ESA, we have to get ready for all these eventualities."

Britain's EU-linked participation in both programmes will come to an end after Brexit, unless it negotiates a specific deal, the ESA has said. When this would happen, is not clear.

But Britain will likely stay in the ESA, which is autonomous from the European Union.

The UK is one of 20 EU members of the agency, which also includes non-EU countries Norway and Switzerland.

The EU has forked out the bulk of Copernicus' budget of about seven billion euros ($8.5 billion) since 2002, though ESA also contributes.

So far, Europe has launched six satellites for Copernicus, which is designed to monitor Earth's atmosphere, forest cover changes, land and water pollution, and the aftermath of floods and earthquakes.

Copernicus will also improve emergency responses after natural disasters.

UK-based companies hold contracts worth tens of millions of euros from ESA to supply hardware for Copernicus and Galileo -- a rival to America's GPS which should be fully operational by 2020.

- What next? -

According to Philippe Michel of ESA's Galileo programme, Brexit has thrown up "several situations" for which solutions must be found.

These included "the issue of security" in a project that involves the sharing of military and other classified information between countries.

"There are situations of contracts which have already been placed, there are situations of procurements which are ongoing, or future procurements... We are discussing of course all that with the European Commission," Michel added.

ESA director general Jan Woerner insisted the agency was not "directly affected" by the British withdrawal, though "indirectly, we have some things where we are working on."

They include visas, medical insurance, retirement plans and other complications that will arise for British staff in Europe, and continental workers in the UK, once the rules change under Brexit.

"We are also looking in the discussion with the European Union, the European Commission, what happens with industrial activities coming from the UK," said Woerner.

ESA's EU policy office head Jean Bruston has previously said Britain could contribute to Galileo and Copernicus if it negotiated a third-party agreement with the EU, as Norway and Switzerland have done.

Source: AFP

A Chinese national was sentenced to five years in prison on economic espionage charges in connection with the theft of proprietary software code from a US technology company, officials said Friday.

A Justice Department statement announced the sentencing Thursday of 32-year-old Xu Jiaqiang, a software developer. The statement did not identify the company but Xu had earlier been identified as a former IBM employee in China.

"As he previously admitted in federal court, Xu Jiaqiang stole high-tech trade secrets from a US employer, intending to benefit the Chinese government," said US Attorney Geoffrey Berman in New York, where the case was heard.

Xu pleaded guilty in 2016 to charges related to the theft. Officials said his scheme was intended to benefit China's National Health and Family Planning Commission and that he also offered to sell the software code to undercover federal agents.

According to court documents, Xu admitted he built a copy of the proprietary software code -- the essential kernel of software programs often held tightly by their owners -- and took it with him when he left the company in 2014.

He met two undercover agents in a hotel in White Plains, New York, in 2015, offering the software which was modified in an effort to conceal its origins.

At the time, Xu told the agents he had also provided the same code to "multiple specific customers," according to the Justice Department statement.

"Xu not only stole high tech trade secrets from his US employer -- a federal crime -- he did so both for his own profit and intending to benefit the Chinese government," Assistant Attorney General Dana Boente said in the statement.

Xu's LinkedIn profile showed he earned a degree in computer science from the University of Delaware and worked for IBM from 2010 to 2014 in Beijing.

Source: AFP

Internet titans Google and Tencent on Friday signalled possible future collaboration on developing new technologies as the US and Chinese firms announced a long-term patent-sharing agreement.

The companies gave no details on the scope or nature of the potential cooperation but said in a joint statement that they "are open to deeper collaboration in the future on innovative new technologies".

"By working together on agreements such as this, tech companies can focus on building better products and services for their users," Google's head of patents, Mike Lee, was quoted saying.

Sam Xu, head of intellectual property at Tencent, added that the patent agreement would "advance the collaboration between two leading technology companies".

California-based Google already has similar cross-licensing tie-ups with Samsung, LG and others, which are typical industry arrangements between corporations designed to minimise patent infringements.

But any cooperation between the US search giant and China's all-conquering tech leader -- the world's second- and fifth-largest companies by market value, according to Bloomberg News -- is bound to generate buzz in the IT world.

Google effectively withdrew its search engine from China's heavily controlled internet landscape in 2010 in a row over censorship and cyber-attacks, and many of its services remain blocked.

But there have been hints of a thaw in relations.

Chinese internet regulators recently allowed access to its translation product, and last month Google announced it would open a new artificial intelligence research centre in Beijing.

The agreement with Tencent would apply to a broad range of products, the companies said, without giving any specifics.

Tencent operates China's ubiquitous WeChat messaging platform and is the country's leader in social media and gaming.

It is pushing to build up its entertainment and gaming businesses and has signalled plans to buy studios, expand into content creation and diversify overseas

Source: AFP

A pair of Australian swimmers on Thursday became the first people to be rescued in the ocean by a drone when the aerial lifesaver dropped a safety device to distressed teens caught in rough seas.

Australia is leading the use of the technology in surf lifesaving, with dozens of drones being trialled on beaches around the country.

In what is believed to be a world-first drone surf rescue, two boys on Thursday got caught in three-metre (10-foot) swells while swimming off Lennox Head in New South Wales, near the border with Queensland.

Beachgoers onshore raised the alarm to the lifeguards who then alerted the drone pilot, and the aerial lifesaver was deployed in moments.

"I was able to launch it, fly it to the location, and drop the pod all in about one to two minutes," lifeguard supervisor Jai Sheridan told the Gold Coast Bulletin.

"On a normal day that would have taken our lifeguards a few minutes longer to reach the members of the public."

Other than a little weary from their experience the pair were reportedly unharmed.

Along with their ability to spot swimmers in trouble and deliver life saving devices faster than traditional lifesaving techniques, like launching surfboards or rubber dinghies, drones are being used in Australia to spot underwater predators like sharks and jellyfish.

Artificial intelligence is being developed using thousands of images captured by a drone camera to build an algorithm that can identify different ocean objects.

The software can differentiate between sea creatures, like sharks which it can recognise with more than 90 percent accuracy, compared to about 16 percent with the naked eye.

Some beaches in Australia have shark nets, but a government report last year called for their phasing out in favour of exploring a range of alternatives, including sonar technology and aerial patrols.

The inquiry found that nets did not guarantee public safety any more than other deterrents but caused significant damage to marine life.

Block graphic aliens dropped down the window panes of a Tokyo skyscraper before being blasted into oblivion by enthusiastic gamers celebrating 40 years of the arcade sensation "Space Invaders".

Four decades after the game took the world by storm, a high-tech exhibition is allowing enthusiasts to save the world from extra-terrestrial invasion in a variety of novel ways.

Part of the installation sees the game projected inside the windows of a skyscraper’s 52nd floor, against the glittering backdrop of Tokyo's night skyline.

Elsewhere at the "Play! Space Invaders!" exhibit, gamers interact more closely with their alien opponents thanks to motion-sensor technology that allows them to stamp or hit the invaders as they approach on the floors or walls.

And for those with a touch of nostalgia, the exhibit also features the traditional game machines that first tempted players in arcades and pizza parlours decades ago.

Father of two, Keiji Ishihara, 50, remembers the frenzy that surrounded the game's original release when he was 10.

"It was a big shock, a fever swept Tokyo, but boys like me didn't have much money to play at the time," he said, smiling as his son blasted away an alien.

"It's beyond sci-fi that we can now access Space Invaders like this!"

When the game was released in 1978, Japan's tech sector was still in its infancy, creator Tomohiro Nishikado said.

"At the time, computers were not that well known in Japan so I learned everything by myself."

"I came up with the characters and the concept. I did everything on my own. Looking back, it is quite impressive... I would say that I am surprised that I managed to achieve this."

Takayuki Taketa, 46, first played the game in a bowling alley and was involved in the development of its revival as an art director.

"It's fantastic to see the game being played again," he said, as electronic bleeps and bloops around him indicated the progress being made in the war against the aliens.

"It makes me so happy to watch people's reactions and see them enjoy it after working on the project."

Source: AFP

Seven lawsuits have been launched in Russia and "hundreds" dozens more are in the pipeline against US tech giant Apple which has already admitted to slowing the performance of older iPhone models, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs said Wednesday.

"We have sent seven lawsuits to Moscow courts -- two have been received by the Tverskoy (Moscow district) court and in all we are going to send ten by the end of the week," Maxime Karpov, representing legal services firm NLF Group, told AFP.

Interfax news agency had earlier quoted the court as saying it had received two of the lawsuits by Tuesday evening demanding compensatioo of 800,000 rubles (around $11,500) from Apple's Russian subsidiary.

NLF Group and the Lex Borealis lawyers firm which is also representing the claimants, said in a joint statement they were handling "at least several hundred" claims running into "several tens of millions of rubles".

Karpov told AFP: "If hundreds of complaints have come our way in a few days then I am sure there will be thousands across Russia. We are concentrating on Moscow and region to keep our costs down but there is nothing stopping us ... undertaking similar moves in the provinces."

Apple, facing a US class action and a legal enquiry in France into "planned obsolescence" of its smartphones, with a new model released annually, admitted last month it was deliberately slowing down performance of older models to bolster "durability."

The company apologised and promised to discount replacement batteries for some handsets following uproar from some iPhone users after news of battery problems stoked concerns the company was unfairly nudging consumers to upgrade.

Source: AFP

China is preparing for a new crackdown on cryptocurrency, planning to stamp out remaining trading in the country, according to state media.

China will gradually clean up over-the-counter trading platforms, peer-to-peer networks where large exchanges occur and firms registered in the country which allow Chinese to trade overseas, the state-run Securities Journal said Tuesday.

The publication cited an anonymous source close to regulators tackling online finance risks.

The new plan follows China's crackdown on cryptocurrency trading last year, which saw Beijing shut down bitcoin exchanges and ban all initial coin offerings.

But alternative channels for trading cryptocurrencies have popped up, including on social networks like WeChat, QQ and Telegram.

Those online groups facilitating large-scale peer-to-peer trade appear likely to suffer greater scrutiny in the coming months.

The international value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has plunged in recent days amid fears of a crackdown in Asia and concerns that many currencies' rapid rise in value last year could reflect an inflating bubble.

At one point on Wednesday, the price of bitcoin on some exchanges had tumbled more than 20 percent, falling below the $10,000 mark that the currency broke through in November of last year.

The market movements come just one month after the most valuable cryptocurrency bitcoin broke through the $20,000 mark in December.

Source: AFP

Apple announced Wednesday it would pay about $38 billion in taxes -- likely the largest payment of its kind -- on profits repatriated from overseas as it boosts investments in the United States.

The iPhone maker said in a statement it plans to use some of its foreign cash stockpile, which qualifies for reduced tax rates under a recent bill, to invest in new projects.

The debate on using technology to help football referees took a twist on Thursday as the French league suspended its use of goal-line reviews following some "serious dysfunctions".

The goal-line technology (GLT) system, provided by German company GoalControl, was "suspended immediately" by French football authorities after incidents in League Cup games on Wednesday between Amiens and Paris Saint-Germain and Angers and Montpellier.

In Amiens, the problem centred around PSG's second goal in a 2-0 victory. Adrien Rabiot's flicked header hit the post and bounced over the line before goalkeeper Jean-Christophe Bouet pulled the ball back. However "the GLT did not make the referee's watch vibrate", Didier Quillot, the director general of the French league said in a conference call on Thursday.

In the second incident, which involved Montpellier defender Daniel Congre, the problem was the reverse. The technology "made the referee's watch vibrate in error even though the ball taken by Daniel Congre passed far from the goal line".

"These two anomalies are unacceptable," Quillot said.

Unlike the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), which is being tried this season in the Bundesliga and Serie A and has been used for the first time in England in cup games in recent weeks, and involves an extra official watching replays, GLT is supposed to respond automatically when the ball crosses the goal line between the posts.

In October, Suzana Castaignede, a former GoalControl employee, told French media that the system did not always function automatically and that sometimes human operators had to intervene and make the referee's watch vibrate after the ball had crossed the line.

On Thursday, the French league signalled it might cancel the contract with GoalControl which is due to run until 2019 and turn instead to its costlier British competitor Hawk-Eye which supplies Serie A, the Premier League and the Bundesliga.

"The technology has to work," said Quillot. "That's not the case with the first-generation that is being delivered by GoalControl."

Perhaps France has reasons to look kindly on GoalControl. The company provided the GLT which was used at the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. It awarded one goal: scored by France against Honduras.

- Ferocious debate -

These French hiccups come as the debate over technological assistance for referees, whether it is GLT or VAR, is being ferociously debated.

For the coming World Cup in Russia, FIFA will again rely on GLT but has not yet decided whether to use VAR, though the governing body of world football has indicated that it would like to in four cases: goals, penalties, straight red cards and mistaken identity.

The experiments with VAR in Germany and Italy are meeting with resistance.

In Italy, Lazio fans launched a legal action on December 20 against the referee and video assistant who they say are to blame for two errors that caused their club to lose 3-1 at home to Torino nine days earlier.

In Germany, the Bundesliga boasted that in the first half of the season VAR helped prevent 37 potential result-changing wrong decisions. Yet in November, ex-referee Hellmut Krug, head of the Bundesliga's VAR centre in Cologne, was replaced amid accusations that he influenced decisions to favour Schalke, the club he supports.

This week, in a survey published in Kicker magazine, 47 per cent of German professional players said they wanted VAR done away with while only 42 per cent wanted to keep it (the other 11 per cent had no opinion).

In November, Germany internationals Sandro Wagner and Sami Khedira agreed they liked the theory of VAR but not the implementation.

"We have to wait two minutes to get a decision and despite the video, too many mistakes are still being made," Wagner said.

Khedira made a point that was echoed by Rabiot after his goal on Wednesday was not immediately given.

"The players do not know anymore whether or not to celebrate after a goal," Khedira said. "A lot of emotion and passion has been lost."

In England, VAR made its debut on Monday as Brighton beat Crystal Palace in the FA Cup with an 87th-minute goal by Glenn Murray. At the final whistle, Palace players were still complaining to referee Andre Marriner that the goal should have been disallowed either by him or by video assistant Neil Swarbrick.

"The people close to it seemed to be incensed, and from our angle it looks as if he's guided the ball in with his arm," Palace manager Roy Hodgson said before adding that the replays had changed his mind.

"When you watch it lots of times like they've been able to do, from different angles, it would have been very harsh" to disallow it.

"It was a genuine goal."

Source: AFP

Bitcoin, the best known of hundreds of 'virtual' coins, slumped on Tuesday, January 16, to a 6-week low below $12,000 as analysts blamed a rush by various jurisdictions to regulate the sector.

The final weeks of last year were marked by bitcoin mania as the unit topped $20,000, but it lost some 20% in Tuesday trading which saw most of its fellow cryptocurrencies similarly wilt.

"Bitcoin has dropped below $12,000, a level not seen since early December. The cryptocurrency has fallen nearly 40 percent since its all-time high," noted David Madden, market analyst with CMC Markets.

According to crypto exchange coinmarketcap.com, other major virtual currencies ethereum, ripple and bitcoin cash, a clone which split from the original last year, posted double-digit losses by early afternoon.

"Explaining moves in bitcoin is always tricky but this plunge ... may well be a result of recent signs that regulatory pressures are building," said Neil Wilson, analyst for ETX Capital, as several countries, notably China and South Korea, target a crackdown.

Last week saw prices sag after the South Korean government said it was planning to ban cryptocurrency exchanges – though it later backtracked – while Justice Minister Park Sang-Ki said Seoul was preparing a bill to shut down the country's virtual coin exchanges to slam the brakes on a craze which "has started to resemble gambling and speculation."

South Korea is a hotbed for cryptocurrency trading, accounting for some 20% of global bitcoin transactions, while much of the "mining" – computerised creation – of the coin units is undertaken in China.

"South Korea holds some of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, so a ban is expected to disrupt Bitcoin trading," said a note from British consultancy Capital Economics, which also alluded to Chinese concerns of bitcoins's effect on financial stability.

Lukman Otunuga, research analyst at FXTM forex forecaster, also blamed the market jitters on the political regulatory backdrop surrounding the sector, which topped $600 billion in market capitalisation in mid-December.

"Bitcoin was the talk across financial markets for all the wrong reasons on Tuesday, after prices tumbled sharply to their weakest level since early December," said Otunuga, noting talk of tighter regulation "has effectively eroded investor appetite for bitcoin.

"With reports on a renewed crackdown on the cryptocurrency in China fueling anxiety over future restrictions, further losses could be on the cards in the near term," added Otunuga, noting the latest wild ride in value "should remind investors on how explosively volatile and unpredictable" cryptocurrencies can be.

Source: AFP

As Japan celebrates the year of the dog, electronics giant Sony on Thursday unleashed its new robot canine companion, packed with artificial intelligence and internet connectivity.

The sleek ivory-white puppy-sized "aibo" robot shook its head and wagged its tail as if waking from a nap when it was taken out of a cocoon-shaped case at a "birthday ceremony" held in Tokyo.

Naohiro Sugimoto, a 7-year-old boy from Tokyo, was among the first to get his hands on the shiny new toy, which he described as "heavy but cute."

"The dog we had previously died ... We bought this robot dog as we wanted a (new) family," he said.

The one-foot-long hound-like machine comes complete with flapping ears and its eyes, made of a cutting-edge light-emitting display, can show various emotions.

Aibo is also fitted with an array of sensors, cameras and microphones and boasts internet connectivity.

The owner can play with the pet remotely via smartphone and even teach it tricks from the office for the faithful hound to perform when its "master" gets home.

It builds up a "character" by interacting with people and while not always submissive, it is friendly towards those who are kind to it.

What the machine "learns" is stored in the cloud so its "character" can be preserved even in the event of hardware damage.

Photos it takes can also be shared.

But such cutting-edge canine technology does not come cheap, with the aibo costing nearly $3,000 for a three-year package, including software services such as data storage.

'Touches a chord'

Aibo is not the Japanese electronic giant's first foray into the animal robot entertainment world.

Its earlier robot dog was put to sleep more a decade ago — a victim of business restructuring — shocking fans.

Sony rolled out the first-generation dog in June 1999, with the initial batch of 3,000 selling out in just 20 minutes, despite a hefty price tag of 250,000 yen ($2,200 at current rates).

Over the following years, more than 150,000 units were sold, with numerous models ranging from gleaming metallic-silver versions to round-faced cub-like models.

But by 2006, Sony was in trouble. Its business model was under pressure and it was facing fierce competition from rivals in all fields. The robot dog, an expensive and somewhat frivolous luxury, had to go.

Yasuyuki Nakamura, another owner of the new-generation dog, his third robot pet, said he was happy to see the dog back in Sony's catalog. "I had been waiting (for a new aibo). I ordered one as I was happy to see this kind of business was revived," the 46-year-old said.

A middle-aged couple said they bought the robot for their 25th anniversary this year.

Sony plans to release the new aibo overseas as well but no details are set yet.

The dog does not speak human languages or perform tasks such as turning a light on.

But that is not the point of the product, according to Sony's Izumi Kawanishi, who is in charge of the project.

"You don't think about what the dog can do when you want to get a dog, do you?" he asked reporters. "The point is that it touches a chord (with people)," he said.

Source: AFP

Bitcoin may be the most famous cryptocurrency but, despite a dizzying rise, it's not the most lucrative one and far from alone in a universe that counts 1,400 rivals, and counting.

Dozens of crypto units see the light of day every week, as baffled financial experts look on, and while none can match Bitcoin's $200-billion euro ($242 bilion) market capitalisation, several have left the media darling's profitability in the dust.

In fact, bitcoin is not even in the top 10 of the crypto world's best performers.

Top of the heap is Ripple which posted a jaw-dropping 36,000 percent rise in 2017 and early this year broke through the 100-billion euro capitalisation mark, matching the value of blue-chip companies such as, say, global cosmetics giant L'Oreal.

"Its value shot up when a newspaper said that around 100 financial institutions were going to adopt their system," said Alexandre Stachtchenko, co-founder of specialist consulting group Blockchain Partners.

Using Ripple's technology framework, however, is not the same as adopting the currency itself, and so the Ripple's rise should be considered as "purely speculative", according to Alexandre David, founder of sector specialist Eureka Certification.

Others point out that Ripple's market penetration is paper-thin as only 15 people hold between 60 and 80 percent of existing Ripples, among them co-founder Chris Larsen.

- They can't be best at everything -

But it still got him a moment of fame when, according to Forbes magazine, Larsen briefly stole Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's spot as the fifth-wealthiest person in the US at the start of the year.

Ether is another rising star, based on the Ethereum protocol created in 2009 by a 19-year old programmer and seen by some specialists as a promising approach.

Around 40 virtual currencies have now gone past the billion-euro mark in terms of capitalisation, up from seven just six months ago. The Cardano cryptocurrency's combined value even hit 15 billion euros only three months after its creation.

In efforts to stand out from the crowd, virtual currency founders often concentrate on the security of their systems, such as Cardano, which has made a major selling point of its system's safety features.

Others work on connected devices so "machines understand each other and are able to send each other value units, money, without going through a person or centralised third party", Stachtchenko said.

Some, like Monero, focus on guaranteeing anonymity, and others on share and bond issues, or on speeding up the confirmation time for transactions, like Litecoin.

"It is impossible for a cryptocurrency to be the best at all the various tasks," said Stachtchenko said.

Meanwhile financiers, established banks and regulators keep issuing stern warnings to the investment community to stay clear of cryptocurrencies.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett said that cryptocurrencies would "come to a bad ending" and that he would never stake money on them.

The South Korean government said it was working on a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading, but then backtracked.

Analysts meanwhile predict that rollercoaster ride of virtual currencies is set to carry on.

"When Wall Street bonuses hit bank accounts on January 15, I imagine we'll see a crypto buying spree of epic proportions" said Meltem Demirors, director of the Digital Currency Group, which invests in crypto businesses.

Source: AFP