Named ‘Pass Track’, the application is designed to facilitate passengers by making currency declaration easier

The Federal Board of Revenue, FBR has just launched an application that will assist international travelers with currency declaration.

Named ‘Pass Track’, the application is created to make currency declaration, which is now mandatory for each person carrying foreign currency, easier and faster.

Any person carrying foreign currency abroad now can easily download FBR’s Pass Track application and declare the amount of money they are carrying with themselves abroad.

Addressing at the launch ceremony in the FBR House, FBR Member Customs (Operations) Mukarram Jan Ansari said that the government has brought about changes in cash-carrying limits for international travelers.

Apart from the FBR, the State Bank of Pakistan has also announced that a declaration with Customs is now mandatory for any person carrying foreign currency.

Inorder to develop the application, the Pakistan’s Custom has obtained help from the National Information Technology Board (NITB).

Previously the application was under testing, but is now approved for public use. The application is available on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Apart from these two, the application has a web version as well.

Any new user can register using their mobile number and then fill in the declaration form available in both Urdu and English.

The application provides a step by step guide to make traveling easier and also has a feedback mechanism to cater users.

Read more:

Facebook Hits Record Two Billion Active Users

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With a 4% year-on-year growth, Facebook noticed a record 2.93 billion users in the third quarter of the year

Meta, the parent company to Facebook and Instagram just released their quarterly earnings report for Q4 2022. According to statistics mentioned in Meta’s report, Facebook has made a new record by hitting over 2 billion daily active users.

This news comes at a time when Meta is surrounded by a ton of problems, some of which are law cases against advertisement policies, increasing competition from other social applications and a downward plummeting share price.

Facebook after the increasing popularity of TikTok has been suffering with its user base growth, acting as a sigh of relief for the company, this report shows that new and existing users are engaging with the application on a regular basis.

Back in the third quarter, the number of daily active Facebook users was around 2.96 billion, and exiting Q4, the application had around 2.93 daily users. It was also revealed that Facebook recorded a 4% year-on-year increase in 2022.

“Our community continues to grow, and I’m pleased with the strong engagement across our apps. Facebook just reached the milestone of 2 billion daily actives. The progress we’re making on our AI discovery engine and Reels are major drivers of this. Beyond this, our management theme for 2023 is the ‘Year of Efficiency,’ and we’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg while talking about the new milestone.

Read more:

ChatGPT Has gained 100 Million Users In Just 2 Months After Being Released

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The brand new chatbot ChatGPT was launched for public use only in December but has already amassed 57 million monthly active users in its first month of availability. It is expected to have surpassed 100 million monthly active users in January, according to new research from investment bank UBS. 

To get the same amount of users, it took the social media app TikTok roughly nine months after its launch to build the same user base, and roughly two and a half years for Instagram to acquire 100 million monthly active users. Google Translate took six and a half years to reach that milestone.

“This is the fastest consumer application I have seen to hit 100 million monthly active users in my career covering this space,” UBS equities analyst Lloyd Walmsley told CBS MoneyWatch. “The ramp has been extraordinary.”

It is expected to get similar advanced tools from deep-pocketed competitors like Google could also detract from ChatGPT’s explosive popularity. But because Google has a large incumbent business to protect, it risks damaging its reputation if its own AI-powered chatbot generates content that is inaccurate, or worse, offensive. 

“The question is, how much do they expose to the public and how fast do they do it?” Walmsley said. 

ChatGPT is free to use for now. The company behind the tool, OpenAI, is testing a $20 monthly subscription for access to a pro version of the app, called “ChatGPT Plus,” which provides users faster responses and priority access to the site when it is overloaded with visitors. OpenAI also plans to continue to offer a free version to the public, the company said. 

“There are more than 1 billion knowledge workers, so given the potential for this to even have utility beyond knowledge workers, it’s not crazy to think it could indeed be that large,” Walmsley said. 

Indeed, students and professionals of all stripes are eagerly testing ChatGPT’s capabilities. It can write essays and generate a range of documents, while corporate leaders even report using the tool for strategic brainstorming. 

At the same time, the breakthrough technology’s surging popularity is raising concerns about the types of workers it could replace as more people use so-called generative AI to write computer code, summarize text and perform other tasks done by humans today.

“There is an element that’s a little bit frightening in the sense of the capabilities of this and what the implications might be for lower skill-level knowledge workers,” Walmsley said.

Walmsley himself said he already relies on the tool to help conduct AI-related research. 

Currently, ChatGPT averages 13 million unique visitors a day, according to UBS. But its growth could taper over the next few months if the hype subsides.

“The next question is obviously what it’s staying power will be. There may be an element of people just coming to look,” Walmsley said.

According to their mission, OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research and development company aiming to “ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity.” 

They have put out products like DALL-E2 in the past, an AI that can create images and art from descriptions by users, and Codex, a system that converts written words into code. 

This technological development has not been missed by Bates faculty. The faculty met on Jan. 23 for a preliminary meeting to hear concerns and questions from professors about ChatGPT. Associate Dean of Faculty Donald Dearborn said that faculty are just beginning to “grapple individually with what this means for how they teach and how they do their work.”

The concern about academic integrity has held significant space in conversations about the use of ChatGPT in higher education. In early January a senior at Princeton University created GPT Zero, a tool that can be used to identify when a text is written by ChatGPT. The tool bases its analysis on the “perplexity” and “burstiness” of the text. Essentially, if the text has multiple variations of sentence length and complexity, or GPT Zero is “perplexed” by the text, it is unlikely to be AI-generated. 

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• OpenAI Is Preparing ChatGPT To Replace Software Engineers

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According to the report, chatGPT has passed the most challenging exam and secured more than 50% marks. Since the launch of chatGPT created by OpenAI, it has been a hot topic for every conversation over the internet.
ChatGPT has almost all the capabilities to pass any exam. It has been trained to do programming and algorithms as well. People are still wondering about chatbot capabilities and power.

Hence, the tool has passed some prominent exams, including MBA and US medical licensing. It has passed the Wharton Business School MBA exam for the final test. Moreover, it has also given the University Of Minnesota Law School exams in Constitutional Law.

Now the chatGPT has passed the US Medical Licensing Exam, Twitter’s CEO Elon Musk has criticized the chatbot.
In a tweet, Mr. Elon Musk responded to a tweet that informed about the chatbot’s capabilities and said, “I am sure everything will be fine.”

OpenAI's ChatGPT has passed the United States Medical Licensing Exam.

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) January 29, 2023

ChatGPT is so intelligent and efficient that if anyone asks about anything, it gives speedy, detailed answers in just a few seconds. It is a creation of OpenAI, a company in which Elon Musk and Microsoft have invested a massive amount.

ChatGPT has taken its place very quickly and demonstrated what it could do. The tool works smartly and can write complex essays, draft marketing pitches, and produce poems and jokes. Moreover, it can quickly draft a speech for a Congressman in the United States.

On the other hand, people also fear that it may take human jobs in the future.
Currently, the most remarkable achievement of chatGPT is passing the US Medical Licensing Exam. According to the news, researchers looked at the chatGPT capabilities of upper bonds in a pre-print study.

According to them, chatGPT scored over 50% in one of the most difficult standardized tests around the US Medical Licensing Exam(USMLE).

Moreover, to test the chatbot, researchers sit in a mock, abbreviated version of the USMLE, which is mandatory for doctors to get a license to practice medicine in the United States.
The researchers fed questions from the last exams to the AI tool and had the answers. The answers were open-ended to multiple-choice questions, independently scored by two physician adjudicators.

Additionally, they ensured that the solutions to those queries weren’t already available in the dataset that the chatbot could access after training.

However, the team observed that ChatGPT performed very well at passing the US Medical exam without specialized training or reinforcement. Even though chatGPT didn’t see the answers.

The overall performance was brilliant as it secured more than 50% across all examinations and approached the USMLE pass threshold of about 60%.

“Therefore, chatGPT is now comfortably within the passing range,” the paper concluded.
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Top Companies That Uses AI Chatbots For Their Corporate Growth

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The post Musk Reacts On ChatGPT Passing US Medical Licensing Exam appeared first on TechJuice.

Named ‘Artifact’, the text based news application works on a recommendation algorithm and is developed by Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have just released a ‘text based’ news application named ‘Artifact’. Designed to compete with TikTok and Twitter, the news application works on a recommendation algorithm and provides users with news that interests them.

According to the founders, ‘Artifact’ is divided between three pillars that represent the application. These are; “articles, facts, and artificial intelligence”.

Soon as a user opens up Artifact, they will see various articles published from a number of different sources, this makes the opening page similar to that of news industry leader ‘Google News’.

Artifact will make notes about the kind of news that intrigues you and also the topics that you are interested in, all while you are going about the application. Over time the application will learn exactly what you like and will begin suggesting it automatically.

Co-founder Kevin Systrom while talking about the application said that it prioritizes the amount of time a user spends reading a certain topic rather than their clicks or likes therefore making the suggestions more genuine and fun.

As of now, the application does not have a social aspect, however moving forward the creators plan to add a feed that shows articles alongside user commentary.

It’s revealed that users will also have the option to chat with each other and discuss news privately.

Read more:

PTA Criticizes Wikipedia For Not Removing “Blasphemous Content”

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Samsung announced the launch dates for its brand new laptop series called Galaxy Book 3 Series. The series has four new Intel Evo-branded Galaxy Book 3 laptops — three traditional clamshell designs and a 2-in-1 convertible: 14-inch and 16-inch Galaxy Book 3 Pro; 16-inch Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360; and 16-inch Galaxy Book 3 Ultra. Screen sizes have stepped up a notch, from 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch models in the first two generations. 

The first variant, Galaxy Book 3 Ultra will start at $2,199, and be available for purchase from 22 February. And the Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 will start at $1,399 and the Galaxy Book 3 Pro laptops will start at $1,249 and both will be available for purchase from 17 February.

Like other leading manufacturers with extensive portfolios, Samsung is also keen to extol the virtues of the ‘multi-device connected experience’ that’s on offer for users of its phones, tablets, laptops, and wearables. 

TM Roh, president and head of Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung said in a statement:

“Today, we’re seeing an increasing number of people using multiple devices to perform efficiently. These new workflows are made possible thanks to our open and extensive Galaxy ecosystem. The latest Galaxy Book3 series further enriches our connected offerings. It is tailor-made for Galaxy enthusiasts looking for ultra-high computing performance and seamless connected Galaxy experiences to maximize their productivity and creativity.” 

Galaxy Book 3 Ultra

Galaxy Book 3 Ultra is a 16-inch Galaxy Book 3 Ultra with 13th-generation Intel Core processors (i7 or i9), up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage, and Nvidia’s latest GeForce RTX 4050 and 4070 Laptop GPUs. 

According to Nvidia: 

“GeForce RTX 4070, 4060, and 4050 Laptop GPUs deliver up to RTX 3080 flagship class performance at one-third of the power, improving thinness, acoustics, and thermals.” 

The company says that these new GPUs, powered by the Ada Lovelace architecture, will launch on 22 February.

All of the Galaxy Book 3 series, the Ultra has an aluminum frame and an eco-conscious design, using recycled plastics from ocean-bound fishing nets, zero in-the-box plastics, and 70% recycled paper in the packaging. The Ultra is the bulkiest and heaviest Book 3 model, measuring 16.5mm thick and weighing 1.79kg (3.9 lbs). 

The 16-inch screen is a 16:10 Dynamic AMOLED 2X display — as used in Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphones — with 3K (2880 x 1800) resolution, 500 nits peak brightness, and a 120Hz refresh rate. This is a significant advance from the 16:9 FHD (1920 x 1080) AMOLED in the 15.6-inch Galaxy Book 2 Pro, for example, moving up to 212 pixels per inch (PPI) from 141ppi, as well as offering more brightness and extra viewing depth via the 16:10 aspect ratio. 

Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360

The 16-inch Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 is, as the name suggests, a 2-in-1 convertible with a 360-degree screen hinge. It’s slightly thinner and lighter than the Book 3 Ultra, measuring 12.8mm thick and weighing 1.66kg — or 1.71kg if you go for the optional 5G mobile broadband. It has a touch-screen version of Samsung’s Dynamic AMOLED 2x panel and comes with an S Pen stylus. 

Processor options are limited to Core i5 and i7, you can specify lower-end RAM (8GB) and storage (256GB) choices in addition to those available on the Ultra model, and the GPU is limited to Intel’s integrated Iris Xe Graphics. Also, the HDMI connector supports version 1.4, rather than 2.0 on the Ultra.

Galaxy Book 3 Pro

The Galaxy Book 3 Pro comes in 14-inch and 16-inch versions, with the former being the thinnest and lightest of the range, measuring 11.3mm thick and weighing 1.17kg. Thanks to its smaller screen, the 14-inch Book 3 Pro can manage with a smaller, lighter, 65Wh battery than the 16-inch models, which all have 76Wh batteries. 

Charging for the Book 3 Pro laptops is via a 65W USB-C charger, while the top-end Ultra comes with a 100W charger. The more compact 14-inch Book 3 Pro does not have room for a separate numeric keypad, as seen on the larger 16-inch models.

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The post Samsung Announced The New Galaxy Book 3 Series; Features And Release Date appeared first on TechJuice.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority stated that Wikipedia was approached for blocking/removing the said contents by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order(s). Wikipedia will be blocked in Muslim-majority Pakistan if the platform fails to take down content deemed sacrilegious within 48 hours, the country’s telecoms regulator said.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Wednesday said it had “degraded” Wikipedia services on non-compliance with an earlier direction to remove “unlawful” content, according to a statement. While it did not elaborate on measures taken, some suggested the site had been throttled.

If the platform fails to remove the content in question, Wikipedia “will be blocked within Pakistan,” the authority said, without specifying the information it wanted to be removed. “There is slowness and it’ll impact especially those who use Wikipedia for education and information purposes,” Wahaj-us-Siraj, Chief Executive Officer of Internet provider Nayatel, said in a text message.

Blasphemy is a sensitive issue in Pakistan, whose laws condone capital punishment for anyone convicted of affronting Islam. Authorities have in the past taken action against various social media platforms for broadcasting content deemed blasphemous. Wikipedia was in the country for 48 hours for not removing “sacrilegious contents” and warned of entirely blocking the site if the online encyclopedia failed to comply with the directions.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the nation’s telecom regulator, said Wednesday afternoon that it had approached Wikipedia to block or remove certain “blasphemous” content by issuing court orders, but said the online encyclopedia neither complied nor appeared before the authority. If Wikipedia’s “intentional failure” persists, the regulator will move to block the online encyclopedia within the country, it warned.

“The restoration of the services of Wikipedia will be reconsidered subject to blocking/removal of the reported unlawful contents. PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws,” the regulator said. The regulator did not elaborate on what content it had asked Wikipedia to remove.

It’s not the first time that Pakistan has raised concerns over the content it sees on popular platforms and sought to control the flow. The South Asian market briefly blocked TikTok in 2021 over “immoral and objectionable content.” Like its neighbor India, the government in Pakistan has also sought to assume more control over the content of digital services operating in the country in recent years.

While global tech giants, most of which count India as a key overseas market, haven’t made much fuss about New Delhi’s new rules for social media, they banded together in 2020 in Pakistan and threatened to leave the country over regulations proposed by Islamabad. The Telecom Authority said that Wikipedia’s services will only be restored when any reported illegal content has been blocked or removed. 

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ChatGPT has become very popular these days as it works on intelligent technology. Instead of working harder, successful people always try to work smart. Incorporating intelligent tools into your business will help boost and save precious time and energy.

Many companies have shifted their ideologies and feel good about bringing new innovative technologies to their business. Many companies are using AI chatbots to obtain their goals.

Chatbots are powered with artificial intelligence, which helps to boost customer happiness, speed up processes, and enhance conversions.

Here we are bringing the top 10 companies that use AI chatGPT for their company’s growth.

Bizbike

Belgium’s biggest e-bike provider, an e-bike company, uses an AI chatbot to answer customers’ queries daily. Previously, they faced many daily questions from customers about different issues.

Bizbike planned to use an AI chatbot to efficiently and reliably respond to customer queries.

The bots from Chatlayer operate with simple templates that can help people in just a few minutes. Businesses can easily customize it according to their requirements. The decision has been a considerable success for Bizbike.

According to the analysis, Bizbike saved more than 40 hours per month after implementing the chatbot while still having interesting discussions with its clients.

Starbucks

At the beginning of 2017, Starbucks introduced AI to its business. The company chatbot made its debut on the official Starbucks Barista app. It works on a message or voice technique which helps customers avoid standing in line for long periods. In addition, the business made it all feasible by using mobile order and payment coupled with digital marketing AI technology.

Using the app, customers can easily place their orders and pay their bills using the app mentioned above.

Moreover, customers also get prizes based on how frequently they use the coffee shop.

The app helps make purchasing easier for clients, particularly those running errands.

Belfius

Belfius, the Belgium insurance bank, deals with thousands of insurance claims daily. Belfius incorporated AI into their business because they wanted to be able to manage daily tasks efficiently.

Customers of Belfius describe the incidents to the bot, which will help to classify the type of claim involved in each case before transferring it to the human agents. Five full-time agents are required to handle the requests at this rate.

Yellow Class

An Indian educational online platform that offers live and engaging hobby classes for children. The efficient classes attract many new customers willing to learn more about the service.

Yellow Class was in search to manage the queries because of the volume of inquiries. Later, the platform created a WhatsApp chatbot with ChatLayer to answer the most commonly asked questions.

Pretty complex requests are forwarded to human beings.

iFood

iFood is an online food delivery service situated in Brazil. It controls nearly 80% of the Brazilian online meal delivery market. Moreover, since Covid-19, its appeal has only grown.

iFood utilized chatLayer’s conversational AI chatbot across the most pertinent message apps. They did this to support their customers for its drivers. Hence, the chatbot assists with the onboarding of new delivery personnel as well as the registration of the latest drivers.

European Commission

The company is utilizing the service to answer travelers’ most common questions. This will help thousands of young European explorers on their journeys.

In the initial phase, the chatbot solved more than 700 questions and handed over approximately 150 questions to a live support agent.

Foyer

The Foyer is one of the world’s leading insurance and weather management companies. The company faces multiple requests 24/7 in different languages.

The Foyer was in search of an efficient tool to simplify its problem. By adopting an AI chatbot, Foyer can successfully answer 80% of incoming customer requests in 125 different languages.

Spotify

Spotify’s chatbot permits users to discover and share music in chats directly. In addition, it has other features like search tools, music suggestions, and sharing capabilities with a 30-second song preview. To utilize the chatbot software, a user has to touch the +sign in the text box. Then tap the Spotify icon to launch the bot.

Later, the windows will provide an overlay chat where the selected music for sharing can be located easily.

Whole Foods

Whole foods is an AI program that creates recipes for you. The whole foods chatbot in Facebook messenger offered delicious recipes with nutritional information. In addition, customers also have the option of selecting or searching for a particular recipe.

As a result, a user can post messages on the website in various categories, including appetizers, gluten-free, or the main course.

Sephora

Sephora adopted chatbot AI to offer customers a wide selection of cosmetic lessons. It provides product reviews and ratings when purchasing cosmetics in stores. Moreover, it is utilized by Facebook and Kik. Both Sephora Visual Artist and Sephora Reservation Assistant are readily available on Facebook.

They both offer makeover appointment scheduling services at Sephora stores. Kik enables emojis, quizzes, reviews, mobile sites, or Sephora site redirects.

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The post Top Companies That Uses AI Chatbots For Their Corporate Growth appeared first on TechJuice.

OpenAI has efficiently hired hundreds of international contractors to help in the coding process. 

The company is planning to code chatGPT in a way to replace human coders 

ChatGPT already threatened and disturbed many industries, including the Google search engine, just a few months after its launch

ChatGPT is a significant language mode created by OpenAI. It has become a viral sensation since its launch in November 2022. ChatGPT has command in all the subjects, coding, and algorithms that have become popular among users.

According to the reports, the chatGPT is full of capabilities. Therefore,OpenAI has planned to train it to replace software engineers.

Initially, Semafor(a news website) claimed that multiple contractors had been hired to assist in training with technology. Additionally, OpenAI is working to eliminate the need for fundamental coding conventions. Eventually, the industry will no longer require human coders.

Capabilities Of ChatGPT Is Constantly Growing

ChatGPT has embedded so many abilities, and still, OpenAI is working on it. Though, it isn’t easy to understate the viral sensation that ChatGPT has taken. Recent studies have shown that the technology has blown people due to the seeming capabilities chatGPT possesses.

Whether we talk about writing content, poetry, coding, or any algorithm, researchers have found that chatGPT is an excellent tool and works like a human being. Due to its endless capabilities, OpenAI has planned to train it with such coding and programming that it will replace software engineers.

Moreover, Semafor reports that the artificial intelligence research business has hired hundreds of international contractors to help engineers to train the chatGPT program.

In the last six months, some contractors have been hired from different places like Latin America and Eastern Europe. The aim is to create data to teach AI to learn simple software engineering tasks.

Moreover, while speaking to one engineer in South America, he said he was tasked with finding bugs in AI code and explaining how to fix its mistakes.

In addition, the engineer told Semafor he thinks the company wants to feed the training data into its AI technology.

However, the eventual goal of the training is to eliminate the need for human programmers. Through chatGPT, the algorithm could execute the whole coding process. The decision allows the entire software development industry to follow the step and embrace the challenges they face in the space requiring more human effort.

Previously, it has been reported that OpenAI has already worked on a product called Codex. The programs as similar to chatGPT, which can cover natural language into working code.

Hence, OpenAI has planned to launch a modified version that will help to advance the technology.

On the other hand, chatGPT has already proved to be a growing threat to many industries. Coding technology is the latest and most innovative technology that OpenAI develops.

According to the news, Amazon employers have reportedly used the program to assist in their coding programs. The company also issued a warning against providing the bot with sensitive data.

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Chat GPT Creators Just Made a Free ChatGPT Breaking Tool

Top 10 Game Changing Effective Use Cases Of ChatGPT 2023

The post OpenAI Is Preparing ChatGPT To Replace Software Engineers appeared first on TechJuice.

In the 21st century, heavy and trusted investment in the technology sector leads to separate developed nations from developing nations. This is exactly the reason behind countries like China have been leading the economic prosperity chart they have an overwhelming proportion of the competitive high-tech industry. 

Unfortunately, it is not the case for Pakistan, lack of financial investment or focus on the tech sector from authorities has led to a devastating tech scene considering the percentage of the young population of the country. Despite having the potential to become a leader in science and technology due to the youth bulge, the country is currently falling behind in research and development (R&D) and has a low level of investment in these areas.

Despite having taught one of the worse tech courses in universities and literally no official level support or appreciation,  the tech sector has potentially helped Islamabad to stabilize its economy and escape future economic crises. While the overall trade deficit continues to increase for Pakistan, tech is the only sector that has a trade surplus of 75%. Interestingly, the growth trend for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into this sector has been positive since 2017. The net flow of FDI was $65 million alone earlier this year. Pakistan’s tech sector exports services for more than  $2 Billion almost every year.

But the growth of the IT sector in Pakistan is falling and though these numbers seem impressive, they are nowhere near where they should have been for a country like Pakistan. For one, the regulatory framework is not conducive to the industry’s growth. 

Last year, former Prime Minister Khan announced incentives—including a tax holiday and a startup fund. However, the government changed before these announced incentives could be implemented leaving them in limbo. Since 2020, the government has introduced new tax regimes for both local and export companies each year.

Though it is not a fair comparison, for the sake of having a considerably similar young population rate, India is far far ahead of Pakistan in terms of tech development. One example which can back the point is that Apple began producing the iPhone 13 in India, and the corporation has now revealed its intentions to produce the most recent iPhone 14. This denotes many metrics such as ease of doing business, labor laws, setting up the supply chain, etc. 

In addition to moving some iPhone manufacturing from China to India, the second-largest smartphone market in the world, Apple is also intending to assemble iPad tablets there, according to the report.

Pakistan needs to adopt a research-based culture before we become unmanageably distant from India and other nations in terms of innovation. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) can collaborate with and offer incentives to private universities to promote research in both the social and natural sciences. 

Additionally, the state should task its research institutions to come up with modern and prudent approaches to agriculture and manufacturing so that we are able to improve our dismal productive capacity.

While Pakistan is headed in the right direction, the intent has to be followed through with policy implementation. For Pakistan to be mapped on the global technology economy, it must facilitate the organic growth of industries through supportive policies, such as ease of doing business. The single window operation is a prime example of automating the process of registrations and approvals for companies. Similarly, one of the challenges faced by companies in applying for rebate schemes was to do the documentation process in months, a process that should only take a day or two. With the process automated across government authorities involved, the benefits outweigh the cost. 

Though the government has shown intent to facilitate the industry, a well-articulated, strategic policy for the growth of the technology sector might give Islamabad the economic autonomy it seeks. Islamabad may have bigger priorities right now but without taking steps to foster sustainable industries, it will find itself in an eternal cycle of crises and bailouts. 

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The post Pakistan Needs Industry-Coordinated Academia If It Is To Keep Up With Global Technology Industry appeared first on TechJuice.

A Chinese crane manufacturing company distributed 61 million yuan (approximately $9 million) in bonuses to employees from a mountain of cash at its annual party. A Chinese company arranged a surprise and unusual bonus party and the distributions nearly went through the ceiling at a year-end party when it handed out millions of yuans, or over Rs 2.3 Billion, to its best-performing employees.

A pile of several hundred wads of cash reaching about two meters high was captured in a photo from a meeting organized earlier this month by crane manufacturer Henan Mine, according to South China Morning Post.

Henan Mine posted videos, on January 17th, of its employees walking onto a stage to collect their year-end bonuses from a 6.5-foot-tall mountain of cash and walking off with their arms full of banknotes.

An unnamed manager from Henan Mine’s public relations department told Jiemian News that three of the top-performing sales managers from the company were awarded 5 million yuan (approximately $740,000) each.

The company racked up billions in profits in 2022, the same year in which the Chinese economy posted its second-slowest annual growth since 1976 — and decided to reward its employees with ridiculous bonuses.

“We held a sales year-end meeting on the night of January 17, giving 61 million yuan in total to 40 sales managers,” 

Three of the top-performing managers walked away with five million yuan (Rs200 Million) each.

Nearly 30 other staff members were awarded at least one million yuan (approximately Rs39 Million), according to the Jiemian News — a financial news portal in China.

Additionally, the company’s employees competed in a cash-counting contest, where they could take as many 100-yuan notes as they successfully counted in a stipulated time.

The cash award spree has triggered a huge amount of interest on social media, with some online observers expressing envy and others calling it a publicity stunt.

Despite bleak official figures for the Chinese economy in the past year, Henan Mine, which was founded in 2002 and has more than 5,100 employees, recorded sales revenues of 9.16 billion yuan (US$1.36 billion) in 2022, up by 23 percent compared to with the previous year, according to its official website.

There were no layoffs from the firm over the past three years despite China’s imposition of strict Covid-19 restrictions. The average salary of company staff has grown by 30 percent each year, it said.

Photos and videos of the party emerging on Chinese social media websites have since been met with criticism and disbelief.

Though the move of giving such high bonuses was appreciated by a lot, showing off the bonuses and using that much cash for the purposes was highly criticized by the critics.

“They are all doing sales and the longest-serving employees have been working at the company for about seven years,” Feng told The Paper. “They are mostly in their 40s and had great work performance in the past year.”

The company also gave red envelopes(Known as Ang Baos in Chinese Culture) containing 3,000 yuan (approximately $440) to more than 5,000 employees as the party was held a few days before Chinese New Year.

In previous years, Henan Mine awarded employees with cars and medals of pure gold.

On the first workday after the Chinese New Year, many people called to submit their resumes to the company, reported Feng. He added that he received more than 200 calls and online inquiries in two days.

According to the Henan Mine website, the company has more than 4,500 employees and 428 sales and service agencies on a national scale. Despite the slowdown in China’s economy during the pandemic, the average salary of company staff has reportedly increased by 30% each year.

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The post Chinese Manufacturing Company Gives $9M Cash Bonuses Which Employees Collected From A Mountain Of Money appeared first on TechJuice.

Made by OpenAI, the tool determines whether a text is written by Chat GPT or not

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has just released a new tool that can determine whether a text is written using AI or not. AI writing tools however can still pass through the tool since it is not completely foolproof.

Talking about the tool in a recent blog post, OpenAI said that this is a classifier tool and has the ability to classify between text written by a human and text that is written by an AI text generating tool.

This tool has the ability to detect not just text that is generated via Chat GPT but also from many other popular text generating AI systems.

According to Chat GPT creators Open AI, this classifier tool will be helpful in identifying academic cheating in assignments and exams and also in scenarios where a Chatbot poses as a human. The creators however also said that the tool is still not able to detect all texts written by AI systems but is effectively learning new classifiers between human and AI generated text.

Details suggest that the classifier tool was only able to identify 26% of the text written by AI whereas the remaining went unnoticed. On the other hand, the tool marked around 9% of human written text as AI-generated.

This goes to show that the tool can still make mistakes and isn’t something to entirely relied upon, however it will still act as a sigh of relief for academics worried about AI generated assignments and homework submissions.

“It should not be used as a primary decision-making tool, but instead as a complement to other methods of determining the source of a piece of text.” said OpenAI while talking about the product functionality.

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Precision Neuroscience Are Designing Brain Implant Safer, Smarter And Reversible

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With the emergence of technology, everything is modifying and changing very rapidly. Precision Neuroscience is building a modern alternative that’s significantly superior and much less invasive to install.

Sometimes it becomes challenging for doctors to figure out what’s happening in their minds.EEG or MRI from outside is needed. Implanted electrodes have been used for this purpose for the last several years. At the same time, arrays of them in formation are typically used to collect data from multiple points.

The information gathered is too low for the patient to say, control prosthetic limbs, or move a cursor on the screen.
Precision Neuroscience plans to solve the problem with one practical innovation- an ultrathin electrode array that doesn’t need to pierce the brain.

“This has been his life’s work,” said Michael Mager, Precision CEO. “His view has always been that you need high electrode density even for basic functionality. And the tech has to be deployable in a minimally invasive way with no damage to the brain. We hope to scale to tens of thousands of electrodes-and you can’t just keep penetrating more and more tissue”.

They have developed a seven-layer array, whereas the cortex has six layers. An 8th layer is more significant than a thumbnail but has 1,024 microelectrodes. It produces a density of 100s of times better than everyday use.

They’re specifically designed to be used in an array, mainly tiling across a brain region. Each variety is capable of providing a fast, accurate picture of the activity of the cortical areas it covers.
It has impressive specifications, but the most crucial part is that the interface can be implanted without a craniotomy.

On the other hand, the super thin film-based layer seven can be inserted through a small incision in the skull.
Still, it’s brain surgery, but it is much less invasive and might not even call for general anesthesia. It would fasten to an external control unit, but the device’s specifications and dimensions would change depending on several factors.
People need the benefit of high technology because people with existing neural problems are the populations who stand to benefit most from a technology like this.

“There are tens of millions of people in the U.S. alone who suffer from stroke, TBI traumatic Brain Injury, degenerative diseases. But for those patients, there are no medical solutions we can offer now beyond physical therapy, ” stated Mager.

“There are two broad use cases,” explained chief product officer Craig Mermel. Stimulation of the brain and a two-way interface is one of them. What we are doing that has backing from research is more on the ‘recode and decode’ side, using it to read info from people with epilepsy or stroke. And translate intent into motor or speech output”.

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Arguably the most famous Youtuber and the most watched Youtuber of 2022, Jimmy Donaldson mostly known as MrBeast on Youtube, declared to his 130 million subscribers in a YouTube video on Friday that he would help cure “1,000 people’s blindness.”

The video which he posted on his Youtube channel, holds a compilation of people who are blind or nearly blind and who underwent cataract removal surgery which was fully funded by MrBeast, CNN reported. The video shows patients’ surprised reactions in the aftermath of the surgery as MrBeast hands some of them $10,000 or more. MrBeast said:

“We’re curing a thousand people’s blindness,” in the Saturday video, which reached over 32 million views as of Sunday afternoon.

Jeff Levenson, an ophthalmologist, and surgeon worked with MrBeaast to perform the first round of surgeries in Jacksonville, Florida. Levenson has coordinated the “Gift of Sight” program for over 20 years, which provides free cataract surgery for uninsured patients who are legally blind due to cataracts.

Levenson said he later performed surgeries on a group of 40 people in an 11-hour time span. He said he also connected the YouTuber’s team to SEE International, an organization that gives free eyecare to folks across the globe and a group where Levenson serves as a chief medical officer.

“If MrBeast can light a fire, and if we can get governmental and private support behind it, we can end half of all the blindness in the world. Without all that much cost, and with incredible gains in human productivity and human potential.”

“Half of all blindness in the world is people who need a 10-minute surgery,” Levenson says in the video, referring to the cataract-removal surgery.

“In the days and weeks after my own cataract surgery, I was stunned by how bright and beautiful and vivid the world was,” he said. “But I was shocked by the idea that there are hundreds of millions, probably 200 million people around the world, who are blind or nearly blind from cataracts and who don’t have access to the surgery.”

Levenson got a call from a member of Donaldson’s team in September. “I had never heard of MrBeast,” he said. “So I almost hung up. But I gratefully did not hang up.”

They started by calling homeless shelters and free clinics to create a list of patients in the Jacksonville area who needed cataract surgery but could not afford it. Eventually, they had a group of 40 patients – and Levenson performed all of their surgeries in a single day, starting at 7 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m.

Most of Levenson’s patients told him that they were in “disbelief that somebody would actually seek them out to rescue them from blindness, and then have the kindness and generosity of spirit to offer the surgery.”

The ophthalmologist also connected Donaldson’s team with SEE International, for which he serves as the chief medical officer. The nonprofit provides free eye care around the world to patients in need. The organization helped Donaldson reach even more patients, for a total of 1,000 surgeries completed around three weeks. The video shows patients receiving the surgery in Jamaica, Honduras, Namibia, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam, and Kenya.

Levenson said he hopes the video and Donaldson’s generosity inspire “a concerted effort to end needless blindness.”

“If MrBeast can light a fire, and if we can get governmental and private support behind it, we can end half of all the blindness in the world,” he said. “Without all that much cost, and with incredible gains in human productivity and human potential.”

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China has recently amended its rules to ban the export of several core solar panel technologies to maintain its leading status and global market share in the sector. A solar panel on a rooftop may include a hundred pieces of silicon and China has the lead now in machinery to manufacture those.  Now Chinese manufacturers have been forbidden to use their large silicon, black silicon, and cast-mono silicon technologies overseas, according to the newly-amended export guidelines published by the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Chinese firms produce more than 80% of the world’s solar panels and modules but have faced heavy tariffs imposed by the United States over the past decade. In the solar panel sector, small silicons refer to those sized 166mm or below. The larger a piece of silicon, the lower the power generation cost. Earlier on 30 December, the technologies were added to a list of items in the “restricted” category in a joint circular on export control published by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Some of them moved their facilities to Thailand and Malaysia to avoid the tariffs but Beijing does not want them to take their core technologies abroad. Technology experts said China wanted to prevent India from becoming one of the world’s major solar panel suppliers. In 2011, the US Commerce Department ruled that China was dumping solar panels in the US market. In 2012, it imposed duties on Chinese solar panels.

Some Chinese solar panel makers moved to Taiwan to try to evade the tariffs but the US expanded its tariffs to apply to the island. They then moved to Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Last June, the Biden administration said it would waive tariffs on solar panels imported to the US from these four countries for 24 months.

To forbid more Chinese firms to transfer their core silicon technologies overseas, China’s commerce ministry last month proposed to include these technologies in its import and export guidelines. This may sound like closing the door after the horse is out of the barn, but that’s not quite the case. Companies may have moved some machines abroad already to make large-sized silicon but when they need parts, machines, and technical support they cannot any longer buy from mainland China

Beijing also proposed to restrict the export of the country’s laser radar, genome editing, and agricultural cross-breeding technologies. Public consultation began on December 30 and ended on January 28. After the consultation, the commerce industry decided to ban the export of large silicon, black silicon, and cast-mono passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) technologies.

A Chinese IT columnist said large silicons sized between 182mm and 210mm would become the world’s standard as their market share had grown from 4.5% in 2020 to 45% in 2021 and would probably increase to 90% in the future. He said Chinese firms that tried to produce large silicons overseas would be affected by the new export ban as they might be unable to purchase the necessary equipment from China.

In the solar panel sector, small silicons refer to those sized 166mm or below. The larger a piece of silicon, the lower the power generation cost. Song Hao, an assistant vice president of GCL Technology, a supplier of electronic wafers for the solar industry, said that while the export ban would restrict Chinese firms from expanding overseas it would not choke off the export of their products from China.

Song said it was reasonable that China banned the export of its most advanced solar panel technologies as many developed countries have done similar things to China in the past. Lu Jinbiao, a deputy director of the expert committee of the Silicon Industry of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, said the export ban on black silicon and cast-mono PERC technologies may not have a big negative impact on the industry as they are no longer commonly used.

Lu said many Chinese solar panel giants, including Longi Green Energy Technology, JA Solar Technology, and Trina Solar Co, had already moved their production lines to Southeast Asia over the past two years. He said these firms would face some restrictions if they wanted to buy crystal furnaces or silicon material cutting equipment from China to make large silicons.

Yu Duo, a solar power analyst at Oilchem.net, said India launched a series of new measures to support its solar equipment manufacturers last year in a bid to reduce its reliance on Chinese products. He said China wanted to prevent India from obtaining its technologies.

Some Chinese solar panel makers moved to Taiwan to try to evade the tariffs but the US expanded its tariffs to apply to the island. They then moved to Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Last June, the Biden administration said it would waive tariffs on solar panels imported to the US  from these countries for 24 months.

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According to reports, Apple with the help of its supplier Jabil Inc is developing airpod components in India and exporting them to be assembled in China and Vietnam

Recent reports from Bloomberg suggest that Apple has started manufacturing its Airpod components in India. The tech giant is performing the operations with the help of its supplier Jabil Inc.

Apple makes the premium TWS airpod components in India and then sends them off into its assembling factories located in China and Vietnam. Workers at the Chinese and Vietnamese factories then assemble these parts and make it a complete AirPod.

But why is Apple only manufacturing the components in India? Why not also assemble it in the country as well? Well, it’s suggested that Apple is slowly moving its production base from China to India and is currently taking baby steps towards the process.

This component production in India is one of the many steps towards Apple switching from China to India. Once completed, this switch will make India and Vietnam the two main production centers for Apple.

According to multiple reports, Apple has plans to increase production in India by over 25% in the next few years. While some of this includes other Apple products such as the AirPods, a majority of it will be the iPhone.

It’s also rumored that Apple is currently looking forward to manufacturing Macbooks and iPads within India.

Analysts suggest that Apple will have a much easier time manufacturing its products in India than it did in China. Which is made possible because of its partnership with Foxconn that is providing it with a mix of imported and locally manufactured components.

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Top 10 Game Changing Effective Use Cases Of ChatGPT 2023

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ChatGPT is an innovative tool created by OpenAI. The purpose behind it is to improve the conventional capabilities of AI systems. ChatGPT is developed explicitly for the use of digital assistants and chatbots.

ChatGPT is very smart and can pick what has already been said in the conversation. Not only this, but it immediately corrects itself if it makes any mistakes.

Here we are highlighting the productive, practical use cases of ChatGPT for the year 2023.

It Answers Questions

ChatGPT works very efficiently, unlike any other chatbot. It answers questions in a classy way. Not only this, but it can explain complex issues in different ways or tonalities of speaking.

It’s all about its training, and it learns everything that is taught. ChatGPT is like an excellent detective. It doesn’t know what the acts of an answer are, but it tries with impressive accuracy.

It Develops Apps

A few days back, people examined ChatGPT by asking to create an app. Amazingly, the AI tool has an example of code that can be used for a particular scenario.

In addition, it also gives general tips for App development. ChatGPT is an AI-based platform that refers to a wide range of related debut distinct subjects that use data and algorithms.

It Can Compose Emails

ChatGPT, the text generator, can write perfect emails, among other capabilities. A person can generate tons of emails for different purposes and personalize them to fit your needs. The emails will not contain grammatical errors and will suit the theme desired by you.

Alternative To Google

ChatGPT is not only a competitor of other chatbots but can also replace Google search. It is a deep learning system that generates text based on predicting language patterns after being pre-trained with a large set of documents.

People may consider it as a replacement for Google as it has intelligent answers to the queries that users search for answers to. Besides, the only drawback is that it cannot give the source references.

Can Create Recipes

ChatGPT is an effective give and intelligent tool. It has taken place in almost every field. Since chatGPT is doing nearly every task from sending emails to clients and writing poetries. ChatGPT is an excellent coon at the same time. If you ask for any recipe, it will generate answers within seconds. Amazingly, the answers will exactly match what you want.

Not only this, but it also helps provide a meal plan. Whether we talk about keto, kids’ meal plans, or diabetics.

Writing Funny Dialogue

ChatGPT is an all rounder. It has taken the attention of almost every age group. It has embedded artistic skills as well. People may take advantage and have fun with the funny dialogues that the AI chatbot generates.

Moreover, ChatGPT also writes skits; the results are a unique and great joy to read.

Language Modeling

ChatGPT is a brilliant tool and can be used to train other models. It has fed and trained efficiently. It can quickly train other models like entity recognition and part of speech tagging. The app is very beneficial for businesses that require enabling extraction from text data.

Converts Text To Speech 

ChatGPT can also convert text to speech and can be used for multiple applications. It also helps students with various projects and to build something creative out of them. It helps in providing voice assistants, automated customer service, and much more.

Text Classification

It can categorize text as spam or not spam. It also indicates about the text whether the statement is positive or negative. Organizations that filter large amounts of text may find it a very effective tool.

Moreover,chatGPT can also translate text from one language to another. It will benefit organizations that must communicate with customers or partners in multiple languages.

Sentiment Analysis

ChatGPt, created by OpenAI, can quickly analyze text sentiments to determine whether it is positive. Indeed, it is an efficient tool that no other has used. A business that monitors customers’ sentiments or mentions of social media may find this helpful.

In addition, it is also used to summarize lengthy texts, making them easier to understand and digest. This easily applies to new articles, legal documents, and other types of content.

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Lahore Electric Supply Company(LESCO) reported that the number of electricity units produced by solar-power net meeting connections had experienced a significant boost.

As more consumers are switching their electricity units to solar panels. A boost of nearly 31,500,000 electricity units has been added to the system in just one month.

As people have started shifting towards renewable energy, it has benefited the consumers and the government. Solar panels take advantage of one of nature’s most potent free resources.

Electricity is expensive, and integrated solar energy panels facilitate the average homeowner and an entrepreneur an easy way to save for a lifetime.

According to the reports, solar panel consumers have experienced a relief of approximately Rs100 million in their electricity bills. This indeed happened by installing solar panels in their homes. It’s a one-time, long-term investment.

Moreover, the surplus electricity produced by the solar systems has been sold to LESCO. This gives financial relief to consumers to use this clean and sustainable natural energy source.

In addition, customers have received connections from LESCO as part of the net-metering initiative. And bi-directional meters are installed to make buying and selling electricity easier.

Net metering is a billing system offered by utility providers such as LESCO. Which works on regulations set forth by the governments. Though a considerable number of clients produce more energy than they can use during the day, this is where net metering comes into play.

When the sun shines during the day, the PV panels might produce more electricity than you can utilize. In that way, the electric meters start running backward. This is an excellent factor, but this is due to extra energy being transferred back to the system.

As a result, the utility provider will credit you with credit points on your energy account for the power you supplied.
The main advantage of the net entering billing system is that the supplier pays you the retail price for the electricity you add to the grid.

Solar panels, also known as photovoltaic systems, work on semiconductor technology to convert energy from sunlight into electricity that can power your household.

Moreover, the most crucial part is that solar panels don’t merely help reduce your electricity bills but also help you earn money from surplus electricity generated.

In addition, the solar panel helps generate clean, emission-free electricity to power your home. In contrast, their life span is more than 25 years which is a reasonable decision for a long-term investment.

Moreover, a solar-powered home helps reduce carbon footprints and helps to eliminate harmful domestic emissions.
If we talk about effectiveness, its effectiveness decreases by about one to two percent in a year.

In a nutshell, it helps you to sell energy that a person is not utilizing back to the grid. Moreover, it also helps to protect the environment by using green energy.

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Amounting to 7% of PayPal’s total workforce, these employees were fired as a plan to counter the “challenging macroeconomic environment”

PayPal on Tuesday announced that the company has planned to fire around 7% of its total workforce. Amounting to around 2000, these employees were fired as a plan to counter what PayPal calls the “challenging macroeconomic environment”

Making the announcement ahead of its start, the layoffs will not be quick. The payment industry giant will deduct a certain percentage of employees each week.

It also revealed that some of its daughter organization might get more affected from the layoffs than the other ones. Currently PayPal owns organizations such as Venmo, Xoom and Honey therefore we may see layoffs from almost all of them.

Jumping in a little late on the tech layoff train, PayPal has now become the one of many companies to fire thousands of its employees during this cold tech season. Mega corporations such as Google, Microsoft and Meta are also companies that laid off employees just around this time.

“Over the past year, we made significant progress in strengthening and reshaping our company to address the challenging macro-economic environment while continuing to invest to meet our customers’ needs,” said PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman, while announcing the layoffs.

“While we have made substantial progress in right-sizing our cost structure, and focused our resources on our core strategic priorities, we have more work to do,” he added.

Following a trend similar to many other tech companies, PayPal share prices went down by about 53% last year. The prices noticed a 2.3% increase on the same day PayPal announced its layoffs.

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TikTok CEO To Appear Before US Congress to Testify About User Privacy and Safety

The post PayPal to Fire Over 2000 Employees for Cutting Costs appeared first on TechJuice.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will appear before a House panel on March 23 about the app’s security and privacy practices and its ties to China through parent company ByteDance. The House Energy and Commerce Committee announced the hearing on Monday, saying it would be Chew’s first appearance before a congressional panel.

 E&C Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said in a statement that:

“ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data. Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms.” 

A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement: 

“We welcome the opportunity to set the record straight about TikTok, ByteDance, and the commitments we are making to address concerns about U.S. national security before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.”

But, the spokesperson added, “There is no truth to Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ claim that TikTok has made U.S. user data available to the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party has neither direct nor indirect control of ByteDance or TikTok. Moreover, under the proposal we have devised with our country’s top national security agencies through CFIUS, that kind of data sharing—or any other form of foreign influence over the TikTok platform in the United States—would not be possible.”

The news comes after the app was banned on government devices and school campuses in a number of states in recent months, as well as on federal devices after a ban was passed in Congress in December. Next month the House foreign affairs committee plans to hold a vote on a bill aimed at blocking the use of TikTok entirely in the US.

TikTok CEO has denied these claims, stating: “The Chinese Communist party has neither direct nor indirect control of ByteDance or TikTok,” according to a company spokesman. It was confirmed on Monday that Chew will testify.

TikTok has been stuck in negotiations for years with the Committee on Foreign Investment to keep its app running in the US. But last December, the WSJ reported talks between the app and government officials had stalled, and a deal may be delayed.

The app has come under increasing scrutiny after reports emerged of a possible security breach. Last month, US President Joe Biden signed into law banning TikTok on official government devices, and more than half of US states have taken similar action.

Some lawmakers also support legislation to ban the app completely from the country, but Congress has yet to reach an agreement on any ban that would affect consumers.

Naturally, TikTok denied the ban in a statement, arguing it was a political gesture that would do nothing to advance national security interests.

Chew, who took over as CEO of TikTok in April 2021, often hides behind the scenes when his app is in the spotlight.

That review has been ongoing as the CFIUS and TikTok have been in talks for more than two years aiming to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of US TikTok users. The White House on Friday declined to comment on whether it would support a legislative ban on TikTok or the status of the talks.

Lawmakers passed a ban on TikTok on government devices in a year-end legislative package, citing security fears. A TikTok spokesperson called the passage of the bill “a political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests,” in a statement at the time, adding that the agreement CFIUS was reviewing would “meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at both the federal and state level.”

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