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Saudi Arabia Launches Digital Platform For Seismic Hazards
The new service could prevent potential future risks and will help to support research into improving local infrastructure.

Residents of Saudi Arabia will soon be able to keep a watchful eye on potential natural disasters. The Saudi Geological Survey (SGS) recently launched the first digital scientific platform in the kingdom, known as the Geological Risk Base Platform, aimed at informing and educating citizens on natural seismic hazards.
منصة قاعدة المخاطر الجيولوجية
تعد أول منصة علمية رقمية تثقيفية للمخاطر في المملكة، تتيح للمستخدم استعراض بيانات النشاط الزلزالي والاطلاع على البيانات والخرائط ذات العلاقة وتمكن الباحثين والمختصين من طلب تلك البيانات واستخدامها في الدراسات البحثية العلمية. pic.twitter.com/yZbywdHeH6— هيئة المساحة الجيولوجية السعودية (@SgsOrgSa) April 4, 2023
The new portal will offer data and seismic risk assessments across various locations in Saudi Arabia and will provide technical solutions aimed at potential future risk prevention, as well as acting as a repository for research on improving local infrastructure.
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The Geological Risk Base Platform was introduced by Bandar Alkhorayef, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources and Chairman of the Board of Directors of SGS. Meanwhile, Tariq Aba Al Khail, SGS spokesman, explained that the new platform would act as a “digital electronic page that includes all the information related to seismic hazards, data, and maps in and around Saudi Arabia”.
News
Google Releases Veo 2 AI Video Tool To MENA Users
The state-of-the-art video generation model is now available in Gemini, offering realistic AI-generated videos with better physics, motion, and detail.

Starting today, users of Gemini Advanced in the MENA region — and globally — can tap into Veo 2, Google’s next-generation video model.
Originally unveiled in 2024, Veo 2 has now been fully integrated into Gemini, supporting multiple languages including Arabic and English. The rollout now brings Google’s most advanced video AI directly into the hands of everyday users.
Veo 2 builds on the foundations of its predecessor with a more sophisticated understanding of the physical world. It’s designed to produce high-fidelity video content with cinematic detail, realistic motion, and greater visual consistency across a wide range of subjects and styles. Whether recreating natural landscapes, human interactions, or stylized environments, the model is capable of interpreting and translating written prompts into eight-second 720p videos that feel almost handcrafted.
Users can generate content directly through the Gemini platform — either via the web or mobile apps. The experience is pretty straightforward: users enter a text-based prompt, and Veo 2 returns a video in 16:9 landscape format, delivered as an MP4 file. These aren’t just generic clips — they can reflect creative, abstract, or highly specific scenarios, making the tool especially useful for content creators, marketers, or anyone experimenting with visual storytelling.
Also Read: Getting Started With Google Gemini: A Beginner’s Guide
To ensure transparency, each video is embedded with SynthID — a digital watermark developed by Google’s DeepMind. The watermark is invisible to the human eye but persists across editing, compression, and sharing. It identifies the video as AI-generated, addressing concerns around misinformation and media authenticity.
While Veo 2 is still in its early phases of public rollout, the technology is part of a broader push by Google to democratize advanced AI tools. With text-to-image, code generation, and now video creation integrated into Gemini, Google is positioning the platform as a full-spectrum creative assistant.
Access to Veo 2 starts today and will continue expanding in the coming weeks. Interested users can try it out at gemini.google.com or through the Gemini app on Android and iOS.