Space : Japan suspends attempt to launch a rocket carrying a vehicle to land on the moon because of winds

TOKYO: The Japan Aerospace Agency has suspended Monday's launch of an H-2A rocket into space, according to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which is responsible for the launch. The rocket was to carry a vehicle to land on the moon.

The company's launch services unit said in a post on the social networking site X (formerly known as Twitter) that the launch was canceled 24 minutes before the scheduled time because wind conditions in the upper atmosphere were not favourable.

The rocket was scheduled to be launched from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan at 9:26 a.m. local time (0026 GMT) on Monday.

The agency said in a live broadcast on YouTube that the company responsible for the launch will provide more details at a later time.

The missile carries the “Smart Lander” spacecraft for exploring the moon and an X-ray imaging satellite.

 

Science: Google seeks to attract companies with cloud services supported by artificial intelligence

SAN FRANCISCO: Digital giant Google announced Tuesday that it will integrate artificial intelligence into its cloud computing services for companies wishing to take advantage of the technology.

This new feature was announced at the annual Cloud Next conference, which is being held in person for the first time since 2019. It is primarily targeted at companies involved in data mining, online work, translation or imagery.

The conference began the day after the launch of the "Open AI" company, the professional version of its "Chat GPT" program, seeking to compete with Microsoft, which was the first to start working in this sector.

While many companies are watching the developments of artificial intelligence with interest, they must still rely on giant groups in the field of cloud computing (Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, or Google) to obtain the computational power necessary to use this technology.

Hence, these groups decided to enter into partnerships with artificial intelligence developers, as happened through the framework agreement signed between Microsoft and OpenAI, or to develop their own models, as Google does.

The giant group also plans to open its cloud computing services to artificial intelligence tools developed by other groups, such as “Meta” or “Anthropic”, in an effort to make itself a mandatory passage for this type of services.

Currently, more than 70% of startups specialized in developing artificial intelligence whose value exceeds a billion dollars, including “Anthropic”, “Jasper” or “Runway”, are already customers of the “Google Cloud” cloud computing service, according to what Vice President confirmed. Philip Muir, head of the group responsible for the artificial intelligence market, during a press conference.

Muir stressed that “all of these companies offer their own models of artificial intelligence, in addition to Google’s models.”

Among the first customers of the artificial intelligence developed by Google, the group cites the automobile manufacturer General Motors, which intends to integrate the group's conversational tool into its vehicles.

According to Google, the number of customers for its cloud computing services related to generative artificial intelligence increased fifteen-fold during the last quarter, with “amazing” interest in these projects, according to Google Cloud Vice President John Yang.

Google is also integrating artificial intelligence into office tools such as Meet or Docs, which are part of its Workspace suite of tools, which has more than three billion users, according to the group.

Among the artificial intelligence tools in Workspace is a digital assistant that can take notes during online meetings, or even attend them instead of someone, according to Google.

These options allow very busy people to be “in two places at once,” by getting notes at the end of an online meeting but not participating in it, with no ability to comment.