OpenAI challenges Google’s dominance with new ChatGPT search engine

OpenAI, the tech firm behind the generative artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, has significantly enhanced its chatbot, integrating search engine capabilities to challenge tech giant Google’s long-standing dominance in web search. The company said that the latest upgrade allows users to receive “fast, timely answers” with direct links to relevant web sources, where they may access information that previously required traditional search engine. The revamped ChatGPT can now deliver real-time information on various topics, including weather forecasts, stock prices, sports scores and breaking news, the company said. These inlcude direct access…

Spain flood death toll crosses 200 as Valencia opens temporary morgue

ALFAFAR: Spanish rescuers opened a temporary morgue in a convention centre and battled to reach areas still cut off on Friday as the death toll from catastrophic floods rose to 205 people in Europe’s worst weather disaster in five decades. In Valencia, the eastern region that bore the brunt of the devastation, at least 202 people have died, regional authorities said. Three have died in Castilla La Mancha and Andalusia. The number of dead is now almost level with the 209 who died during heavy floods in Romania in 1970. …

Dense smog shrouds Lahore with AQI over 1,000

Punjab’s capital Lahore led the global pollution charts with a dangerously high air quality index (AQI) of over 1,000 as thick smog shrouded the densely-populated city.  Lahore had the worst air quality of 1,067 around 9:30am on Swiss air quality watchdog’s real-time list of most polluted cities in the world, despite provincial government’s desperate attempts to fight off smog. The city battles pollution each year in winter as temperatures fall and cold air traps construction dust, vehicle emissions, and smoke. Seasonal crop burn-off by farmers on the outskirts of Lahore also…