Browsing: AI Tools

Mastercard has completed its first live, authenticated agent-based payment transaction in Singapore, a milestone that advances autonomous AI commerce from proof of concept to everyday use.Announced on March 4, 2026, the transaction was carried out in partnership with DBS and UOB, two of Southeast Asia’s largest banks. In the demonstration, an AI agent booked a ride to Singapore’s Changi Airport through hoppa, a global mobility provider, with the booking facilitated by CardInfoLink’s AI agent, which connects to hoppa’s taxi and airport limousine network.The basis of the transaction was Mastercard Agent Pay, the company’s framework for secure AI-initiated purchases. Each transaction…

Vietnamese elect members of parliament from a list of candidates ⁠almost exclusively fielded by the governing party.Listen to this article | 3 minsinfoPublished On 15 Mar 202615 Mar 2026Click here to share on social mediashare2Shareplus2googleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoVoters in Vietnam are casting their ballots for members of the National Assembly, the country’s top legislative body, which serves mainly to ratify decisions by the governing Communist Party.Nearly 93 percent of the 864 parliamentary candidates in Sunday’s election are Communist Party members, while 7.5 percent are independents, according to the national election council, down from 8.5 percent in 2021.Recommended Stories list of 4…

The integration of physical AI into vehicles remains a primary objective for automakers looking to accelerate innovation.A technical collaboration between Qualcomm and Wayve offers a framework for how hardware and software providers can consolidate their efforts to supply production-ready advanced driver assistance systems to manufacturers worldwide.The partnership combines Wayve’s AI driving layer with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride system-on-chips and active safety software. This aims to simplify implementation while meeting baseline requirements around reliability, safety, and time-to-market.Simplifying physical AI integration for modern vehiclesBuilding an autonomous driving stack often involves piecing together fragmented components from various vendors. This closed method increases development costs,…

Listen to this article | 4 minsinfoThe United States says that it has reopened its embassy in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas after a seven-year hiatus, as President Donald Trump deepens ties with the South American country’s new government.The US embassy said in a social media post on Saturday that the flag over the embassy has been raised once again, in a ceremonial step that signals the resumption of diplomatic activities in Venezuela.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“The morning of March 14, 2019, the American flag was lowered for the final time at US Embassy Caracas. This morning, on March…

Large financial firms have spent years testing artificial intelligence in small projects, often limited to data analysis or customer support tools. The next phase appears to involve something more operational: systems that can take action in business workflows. Canadian insurer Manulife is moving in that direction as it works to deploy agent-based AI systems inside its internal operations.The company is building these abilities with a runtime platform designed to support agentic AI, the type of system that can carry out tasks in different software tools and datasets. Manulife said the effort is part of a broader plan to automate high-volume…

Listen to this article | 4 minsinfoUnited States President Donald Trump has said the country’s military bombed military installations on Iran’s Kharg Island, warning the area’s critical oil facilities could be next if Iran continues to block the Strait of Hormuz.Iran, in turn, threatened on Saturday to reduce US-linked oil facilities to “a pile of ashes” if oil structures on the island were targeted as the US-Israel war on Iran, now in its punishing third week, spilled over into a global oil price crisis already in the making.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listKharg Island is where more than 90 percent…

Europe’s factory floors have a new kind of colleague. BMW Group has deployed humanoid robots in manufacturing in Germany for the first time, launching a pilot project at its Leipzig plant with AEON–a wheeled humanoid built by Hexagon Robotics. It is the first automotive deployment of AEON anywhere in the world, and it marks something of a line in the sand for European industry: physical AI is no longer a North American or East Asian story.The announcement, made on March 9, 2026, comes backed by hard data from a prior US trial. In 2025, BMW ran a ten-month pilot at its Spartanburg, South Carolina, plant…

Listen to this article | 5 minsinfoOne of the most wanted drug kingpins in South America, Sebastian Enrique Marset Cabrera, has been arrested in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia, after a morning raid involving hundreds of police officers.Following Marset’s capture on Friday, Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz celebrated the arrest as a milestone in the fight against drug trafficking on the continent.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“One of the drug traffickers and criminals considered among the four biggest on the continent has fallen,” Paz said during a news conference in La Paz, Bolivia.“The capture of Mr Marset marks a…

E.SUN Bank is working with IBM to build clearer AI governance rules for how artificial intelligence can be used inside a bank. The effort reflects a wider shift in finance. Many firms already use AI for fraud checks and credit scoring, and some also use it to handle customer service queries. The new challenge is how to manage these systems in a way that meets legal and risk rules.Banks face a growing list of questions as they deploy AI. How should a model be tested before it goes live? Who is responsible if it makes a wrong call? And how…

Listen to this article | 6 minsinfoHeavy Israeli strikes have hit Tehran, Iran, as its allies launch attacks across Gulf states, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been severely disrupted, sending global oil prices soaring.Meanwhile, political pressure is mounting in Washington as the conflict spreads across the region.Recommended Stories list of 1 itemend of listHere is what we know about what has been happening in the past 24 hours:In IranSupreme leader speaks: Appointed last week following the assassination of his father, Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has issued his first statement, warning that attacks on Israel and US military…