New “hearing glasses” are being created that use artificial intelligence to help people hear conversations more clearly in real-time.
Scientists in Scotland are developing a prototype set of glasses that combine lip-reading technology, artificial intelligence and cloud computing to clean up conversations in people’s hearing aids.
The smart glasses are fitted with a camera that records dialogue and uses visual cues to detect the main speaker.
The wearer’s phone then sends the recording to a cloud server, where the speaker’s voice is isolated and background noise removed.
The cleaned-up audio is then sent back to the listener’s hearing aid almost instantly, despite travelling to servers all the way over in Sweden and back.
“We’re not trying to reinvent hearing aids. We’re trying to give them superpowers,” said project leader Professor Mathini Sellathurai, of Heriot-Watt University.
“You simply point the camera or look at the person you want to hear.
“Even if two people are talking at once, the AI uses visual cues to extract the voice of the person you’re looking at.”
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Over 1.2 million UK adults struggle with ordinary conversation because of hearing loss, according to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People.
Although noise-cancelling technology does exist for hearing aids, it often struggles with voices overlapping in conversation or when there are lots of different background noises.
The researchers say that by using cloud servers to do the heavy lifting on cleaning up audio, the glasses can take advantage of powerful artificial intelligence while still being wearable.
They hope to have a working version of the glasses by 2026, and are already speaking to hearing aid manufacturers about ways to reduce costs and make the devices more widely available.
Scientists from Heriot-Watt University led the project and worked with researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Napier University and the University of Stirling.
Artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Perplexity has made a surprise $34.5bn (£25.6bn) takeover offer for Google’s Chrome internet browser.
Moving Chrome to an independent operator committed to user safety would benefit the public, Perplexity said in a letter to Sundar Pichai, the boss of Google’s owner Alphabet.
Google’s dominance of the search engine and online advertising market has come under intense scrutiny, with the technology giant facing a years-long antitrust case brought by the US Department of Justice.
The BBC has contacted Google for comment. The firm has not announced any plans to sell Chrome – the world’s most popular web browser with an estimated three billion-plus users.
A US federal judge is expected to issue a ruling this month that could see Google being ordered to break up its search business.
But some analysts have said the bid is unlikely to be successful as it is still unclear whether or not Google will be forced to sell Chrome.
Venture capitalist Tomasz Tunguz from Theory Ventures also told the BBC that the offer is a lot lower than the browser is worth “given the value of Chrome is likely significantly higher – maybe ten times more valuable than the bid or more.”
The company has said it would appeal such a ruling, saying the idea of spinning off Chrome was an “unprecedented proposal” that would harm consumers and security.
Perplexity’s app is among the rising players in the generative AI race, alongside more well-known platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
Last month, Perplexity launched an AI-powered browser called Comet.
The bid marks an “important commitment to the open web, user choice, and continuity for everyone who has chosen Chrome,” a spokesman for Perplexity told the BBC.
As part of the proposed takeover, Perplexity said it would continue to have Google as the default search engine within Chrome, though users could adjust their settings.
The firm said it would also maintain and support Chromium, a widely-used open-source platform that supports Chrome and other browsers including Microsoft Edge and Opera.
Perplexity did not respond to queries on how the proposed deal would be funded. In July, it had an estimated value of $18bn.
The company made headlines earlier this year after offering to buy the American version of TikTok, which faces a deadline in September to be sold by its Chinese owner or be banned in the US.
Perplexity has reportedly drawn interest from technology giants including Apple and Facebook-owner Meta.
Driven by strategic, economic, and geopolitical factors, multinational companies are increasingly viewing expansion opportunities in the Middle East.
As one of the world’s most open and rapidly expanding economies, the region is a vital hub for global business, trade, and finance. Diversifying beyond oil and gas exports, the Middle East is now thriving across sectors such as construction and infrastructure, tourism, financial services, and technology.
While the region presents opportunities for growth, entering the market requires a nuanced understanding of its complex legal and regulatory frameworks. Companies new to the region must make critical decisions early on—such as selecting the optimal corporate structure, choosing between onshore and offshore entities, and evaluating the benefits and limitations of operating in one of the many free zones.
A solid understanding of things like the corporate tax frameworks, the factors at play when determining how to structure local presence, physical presence obligations, local national hiring requirements, workweek norms, local laws and regulations related to employee equity and benefit plans, and more will help companies to succeed in the Middle East.
Join us for a webinar on September 9 as Baker McKenzie lawyers from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates provide practical tips from a corporate, tax, employment, and compensation perspective to navigate the evolving legal and business landscape in the Middle East.
Topics will include:
Corporate considerations: best practices and key points for establishing an entity in the region.
The corporate tax landscape: pointers for understanding the tax and regulatory environment to develop a strategy for long-term tax efficiency.
Engaging talent: engagement options for hiring local talent, as well as significant recent developments in local labor and employment regulations.
Compensation matters: tax, compliance and regulatory issues related to structuring incentive compensation programs for employees.
As more of its allies make moves to recognise Palestinian statehood, the issue is dominating New Zealand’s politics, with a prominent MP ejected from parliament on Tuesday and the prime minister describing his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu as having “lost the plot”.
Speaking to local media on Wednesday, Christopher Luxon said what was happening in Gaza was “utterly, utterly appalling”.
“I think Netanyahu has gone way too far, I think he has lost the plot and I think what we are seeing overnight, with the attack on Gaza City is utterly, utterly unacceptable.”
Luxon said the Israeli prime minister was “not listening to the international community”.
The prime minister’s comments are among the strongest words of condemnation he has used against Netanyahu but that will be cold comfort for opposition parties who say the government is lagging behind on recognising Palestinian statehood.
On Tuesday, MP Chlöe Swarbrick was ordered to leave parliament during a heated debate, that was called after the centre-right government said it was weighing up its position on whether to recognise a Palestinian state. Close ally Australia on Monday joined Canada, the UK and France in announcing it would recognise a Palestinian state at a UN conference in September.
Swarbrick, who is co-leader of the Green party, said New Zealand was a “laggard” and an “outlier” and the lack of decision was appalling, before calling on some government members to support a bill to “sanction Israel for its war crimes”. The bill was proposed by her party in March and is supported by all opposition parties.
“If we find six of 68 government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history,” said Swarbrick.
Speaker Gerry Brownlee said that statement was “completely unacceptable” and that she had to withdraw it and apologise. When she refused, Swarbrick was ordered to leave parliament.
Brownlee later clarified Swarbrick could return on Wednesday but if she still refused to apologise she would again be removed from parliament.
Luxon’s government has said it would make a decision in September about whether it would recognise Palestine as a state.
Netanyahu has been strongly critical of growing international moves to recognise a Palestinian state. “To have European countries and Australia march into that rabbit hole, just like that, fall right into it,” he said earlier this week. “This canard is disappointing, and I think it’s actually shameful. But it’s not going to change our position.”
Netanyahu went on to claim Israel was “actually applying force judiciously, and they know it”.
Foreign minister Winston Peters told parliament that over the next month the government would gather information and talk to partners, which would inform cabinet’s decision.
“We’ll be weighing this decision carefully rather than rushing to judgment,” Peters said.
Along with the Green party, opposition parties Labour and Te Pati Māori support recognition of a Palestinian state.
Labour parliamentarian Peeni Henare said New Zealand had a history of standing strong on its principles and values and in this case “was being left behind”.
Irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea (IBS-D) is an unpleasant condition to live with, affecting millions of people worldwide. Now a new study has identified what could be a key trigger for the condition – a trigger which could be targeted by future treatments.
An investigation on 108 people with and without IBS-D and related conditions has revealed a hormone called insulin-like peptide 5 (INSL5) is released when bile acids that aid digestion find themselves further along the digestive tract than usual, in the large intestine.
This shouldn’t happen, but when it does – due to certain conditions and gut malfunctions – more INSL5 gets produced, which causes diarrhea-like symptoms.
This is potentially responsible for around two out of every five cases of IBS-D, the researchers say, and may explain why a lot of existing drugs and strategies to combat IBS-D are ineffective.
Related: Surprising ‘Nocebo Effect’ Shows Gluten May Not Be The Problem in IBS
“When you go to the doctor with chronic diarrhea, they’ll likely test for food intolerances, rule out an infection or look for signs of inflammation,” says Chris Bannon, an endocrinologist at the University of Cambridge in the UK. “There has been significant research interest in the microbiome, but gut hormones have been neglected.”
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that gut hormones play an important role in things like gut health and weight management.”
The researchers found bile acids (TCA) led to elevated ISNL5 levels and diarrhea. (Bannon et al., Gut, 2025)
The study included participants with bile acid diarrhea (BAD) as well as IBS-D, helping the researchers identify a link between these conditions, the differences between them, and the triggers responsible for them.
At the moment, BAD is difficult to diagnose and is often classed as IBS, and the researchers hope that being better able to spot it will lead to treatments that can more effectively target the underlying causes.
It’s also important to note that INSL5 is naturally produced by the body. Although it brings on diarrhea, it’s actually a sign of the body trying to protect itself: it detects that bile acids shouldn’t be in the colon, and flushes them out.
“It makes sense that you would have something that detects toxins and helps the body rid itself of them,” says Bannon. “But a problem develops if it’s always being triggered by bile acid, causing very dramatic symptoms.”
Studies using mouse models had found that INSL5 could cause diarrhea, but this is the first time researchers have been able to show the same processes in people, and in ways that are connected to two recognized conditions.
The next steps are to look at potential treatments targeting INSL5. Some IBS-D patients in previous studies showed improved symptoms when given the anti-sickness medicine ondansetron – a known INSL5 blocker – which may indicate one route forward, although it’s not yet clear why ondansetron works so well.
“This was a very exciting finding because it showed us that this hormone could be playing a big part in symptoms of this misunderstood condition,” says Bannon.
“It also meant it might allow us to develop a blood test to help diagnose bile acid diarrhea if INSL5 levels are only high in these individuals.”
The severely indebted real estate developer China Evergrande, already in the process of liquidation, said on Tuesday it will be delisted from Hong Kong’s stock exchange on Aug. 25, another setback to mainland China’s property sector.
Evergrande was the world’s most heavily indebted real estate developer, with over $300 billion owed to banks and bondholders, when the court handed down a liquidation order in January 2024. The court had ruled that the company had failed to provide a viable restructuring plan for its debts, which fueled fears about China’s rising debt burden, and trading of its shares has been halted since the ruling.
The city’s rules stipulate that the listing of companies may be canceled if trading in their securities has remained suspended for 18 months consecutively.
China Evergrande Group received a letter Aug. 8 from the city’s stock exchange notifying the firm of its decision to cancel the listing as trading had not resumed by Jul. 28. The last day of the listing will be Aug. 22 and Evergrande will not apply for a review of the decision, the company said in a statement.
“All shareholders, investors and potential investors of the company should note that after the last listing date, whilst the share certificates of the shares will remain valid, the shares will not be listed on, and will not be tradeable on the Stock Exchange,” the statement said.
Evergrande is among scores of developers that defaulted on debts after Chinese regulators cracked down on excessive borrowing in the property industry in 2020. Unable to obtain financing, their vast obligations to creditors and customers became unsustainable.
The crackdown also tipped the property industry into crisis, dragging down the world’s second-largest economy and rattling financial systems in and outside China. Once among the nation’s strongest growth engines, the industry is struggling to exit a prolonged downturn. Home prices in China have continued to fall even after the introduction of supportive measures by policymakers.
The Hong Kong court system has been dealing with liquidation petitions against some Chinese property developers, including one of the largest Chinese real estate companies, Country Garden, which is expected to have another hearing in January.
China South City Holdings, a smaller property developer, was also ordered to liquidate on Monday.
Evergrande, founded in the mid-1990s by Hui Ka Yan, also known as Xu Jiayin, had over 90% of its assets on the Chinese mainland, according to the 2024 ruling. The firm was listed in Hong Kong in 2009 as “Evergrande Real Estate Group” and suspended its share trading on Jan. 29, 2024, at 0.16 Hong Kong dollars ($0.02).
Its liquidators said in a progress report that they received debt claims totalling $45 billion as of Jul. 31, much higher than the some $27.5 billion of liabilities disclosed in December 2022, and that the new figure was not final.
The liquidators said they have assumed control of over 100 companies within the group and entities under their direct management control with collective assets valued at $3.5 billion as of Jan. 29, 2024. They said an estimate of the amounts that may ultimately be realized from these entities wasn’t available yet.
About $255 million worth of assets have been sold, the liquidators said, calling the realization “modest.” Of this amount, $244 million was derived from subsidiaries’ assets, and not all of them will be available to the company, given the complex ownership structures of the assets.
“The liquidators believe that a holistic restructuring will prove out of reach, but they will, of course, explore any credible possibilities in this regard that may present themselves,” they said.
Hui, Evergrande’s founder, was detained in China in September 2023 on suspicion of committing crimes, adding to the company’s woes.
In 2024, the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued a fine of 4.2 billion yuan (about $584 million) against the firm’s subsidiary, Hengda Real Estate Group Company, over violations including falsifying financial records. Hui was fined 47 million yuan ($6.5 million) and barred from China’s securities markets for life. Some other executives were also penalised.
Chinese authorities in September 2024 banned the accounting firm PwC for six months and fined the company more than 400 million yuan ($56.4 million) over its involvement in the audit of the collapsed property developer.
Security forces killed on Tuesday at least three more terrorists during a sanitisation operation on the night of August 10 and 11 in the general area of Sambaza along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, said a statement by the ISPR.
The military’s media wing added that weapons, ammunition and explosives were recovered from the killed terrorists. The action follows earlier anti-infiltration operations in the area.
Over the last four days, security forces have intercepted infiltration attempts along the border and killed at least 47 terrorists. The total has now risen to at least 50.
In a fresh threat to India, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday said the “enemy” would not be allowed to snatch “even one drop” of water belonging to his country.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.(AFP file)
India took a series of punitive measures against Pakistan that included putting the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 in “abeyance” on April 23, a day after the Pahalgam terror attack that claimed 26 lives.
Pakistan has repeatedly cautioned that any attempt to block the water flow would be considered an act of war.
“I want to tell the enemy today that if you threaten to hold our water, then keep this in mind that you cannot snatch even one drop of Pakistan,” news agency PTI quoted Shehbaz Sharif as saying at a ceremony in Islamabad.
The Pakistani prime minister also warned that if India attempted such an act, “you will be again taught such a lesson that you will be left holding your ears.”
There was no immediate comment from India on Shehbaz Sharif’s threat.
Bilawal Bhutto slammed by Mithun Chakraborty
Sharif’s statement comes a day after former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari made similar comments, terming the Indus Waters Treaty’s suspension an attack on the Indus Valley Civilisation and said Pakistan would not back down if India forced it into war.
Actor-turned-Bharatiya Janata Party leader Mithun Chakraborty on Tuesday reacted sharply to the Pakistan People’s Party chairman’s comment and warned that India will respond with a series of Brahmos missiles.
His fiery retort was also accompanied by a bizarre one: a dam will be built, and 140 crore Indians will relieve themselves there before that reservoir will be opened to unleash a tsunami in the neighbouring nation.
Chakraborty, however, emphasised that he had nothing against the ordinary people of Pakistan who are peace-loving and do not want war and that his ire was directed only at the Pakistani establishment.
What Asim Munir said
Meanwhile, in an address to the Pakistani diaspora in Tampa, Florida, Pakistani Army chief General Asim Munir reportedly said Islamabad would destroy any dam if it cut off water flow to Pakistan.
“We will wait for India to build a dam, and when they do so, we will destroy it,” Asim Munir was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.
“The Indus River is not the Indians’ family property. We have no shortage of resources to undo the Indian designs to stop the river,” he added.
India hits back
Hitting back, the ministry of external affairs said on Monday that Munir’s fresh nuclear threat against India reinforced the well-held doubts about the integrity of nuclear command and control in that country, where the military is “hand-in-glove” with terrorist groups and New Delhi will not give in to any nuclear blackmail.
Nuclear sabre-rattling is Pakistan’s “stock-in-trade”, the MEA said, adding that India will continue to take all steps necessary to safeguard its national security.
In an apparent message to the US, the ministry said it is also regrettable that these remarks were made from the soil of a “friendly third country”.
Operation Sindoor against Pakistan
India carried out Operation Sindoor on May 7, striking terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in response to the April 22 Pahalgam attack that claimed 26 civilian lives.
After four days of heavy cross-border drone and missile exchanges, India and Pakistan agreed on May 10 to end the hostilities.
