News

Google Plans A Future Where Robots Think For Themselves

Google is helping robots better understand how to be helpful to humans, and the results are encouraging!

Published

4 years ago

August 19, 2022

google plans a future where robots think for themselves

Unknown to many of its fanbase, search giant Google has been developing its own semi-secret research laboratory for over a decade. The project is known as X Developments and focuses on exciting projects such as the recent Everyday Robots collaboration.

The project emphasizes the software side of robotics, aiming to make the technology helpful to humans by optimizing robots for tasks that include finding, fetching, and sorting items, as well as training bots to be awesome at ping-pong or catching racquetballs.

Google’s latest milestone is the “Pathways Language Model,” a software solution that gives the company’s robots a better understanding of the world, helping them respond more accurately and efficiently to human requests. So far, the robot workers at Google have been set to work on less-than-glamorous tasks such as trash sorting, with the aim that eventually, they will be able to take on tasks and teach themselves on the fly. Research into seemingly useless tasks like ping-pong might seem frivolous, but these operations require speed and precision, so they help engineers tune their robot sidekicks for future requirements.

google everyday robots throwing away trash

Google’s emphasis on robotic precision means that the company is unlikely to release a product for the general public any time soon. Their stance stands in sharp contrast to rival Amazon, which has already offered a product to market named Astro (albeit invite-only) — a $999 robot that seems to offer little more than basic Alexa functionality on wheels.

Also Read: Farfetch Aims To Bring Web3 To The World Of Fashion

“Google tries to be a company that provides access to information, helping people with tasks in their daily lives, you could imagine a ton of overlap between Google’s overarching mission and what we’re doing in terms of more concrete goals. I think we’re really at the level of providing capabilities, and trying to understand what capabilities we can provide,” says Vincent Vanhoucke, Google Research Robotics Lead.

Don’t expect to see a Google-themed robot appearing anytime soon, but keep an eye out for the latest developments from X Developments, as even the company’s homepage points to an exciting future for human / robot partnerships!

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.