United halts flight departures across US over 'technology issues'
The BBC has contacted United Airlines for comment. Flights that are already in the air will continue to their destination, the company told CBS News. It added that regional flights were not impacted but could be delayed because of traffic jams from the ground stops. Over 700 United flights had been delayed as of 21:00 EDT (2:00 BST), according to flight tracking site FlightAware.
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Daily Mail
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United Airlines flyer details rookie mistake that cost them almost $100 instantly
The absence of a simple 'back' button on United Airlines' website cost a Canadian traveler nearly $100 while booking flights for her family. The traveler, who shared her story in a Reddit post, was booking tickets that were due to cost #295 when she realized she needed to modify the seat selection. But without a back button, she had to cancel the cart and start over. The same tickets had jumped $30 within minutes after entering all her flight details again. Still hoping for a fix, she tried searching on another computer — only to see the fare rise again, this time to $362. 'On United's website, there is no 'back' button,' she wrote. 'So I basically had to cancel the cart item and redo all the steps.' She concluded the spike, on July 31, was likely due to demand — a suspicion echoed by fellow Reddit users, many of whom shared similar experiences. 'If it makes you feel any better, I made a $500 mistake similar to that,' one traveler replied. Others chimed in with advice and critiques. 'The system might not have released the inventory you held, back into the pool right away. Why didn't you just change the seats after booking,' a commenter wrote. 'It's a demand issue,' another added. 'If there are multiple searches for the same flight, the prices start increasing.'. One traveler said they nearly made a $1,600 mistake by misunderstanding a change fee. 'I thought it was $320 total to move our family's return flight up by four hours,' they wrote. 'Turns out it was $320 per ticket. Thankfully, I called and got everything refunded.' Others noted that United will often refund the fare difference in credit if the price drops after booking. United has faced growing criticism in 2025 for several unpopular changes that have led some travelers to jump ship. The company faced backlash after quietly reinstating a pricing policy that charges solo passengers more than those traveling in pairs or groups. Reddit user chimedon how a quirk on United's website cost a Canadian traveler nearly $100 while booking flights for her family. Data indicated the airline is applying at least an eight percent price hike for solo travelers on weekdays. It also ignited fury by narrowing its check-in cutoff window. Since June, instead of the 30-minute cutoff, all United flyers must check in for domestic flights at least 45 minutes before takeoff. Meanwhile, United continues pushing luxury on international routes. Its new Polaris Studio suites, launching this year on flights from San Francisco to London and Singapore. The suites will include perks such as Cuvée Rosé and designer hoodie pajamas, and will include Wi-Fi from Starlink, a service developed by the Elon Musk 's SpaceX.
BBC News
7 hours ago
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It shocked the US market but has China's DeepSeek changed AI?
US President Donald Trump had been in office scarcely a week when a new Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app called DeepSeek jolted Silicon DeepSeek-R1 shot to the top of the Apple charts as the most downloaded free app in the firm said at the time its new chatbot rivalled ChatGPT. Not only that. They asserted it had cost a mere fraction to claims – and the app's sudden surge in popularity – wiped $600bn (£446bn) or 17% off the market value of chip giant Nvidia, marking the largest one-day loss for a single stock in the history of the US stock other tech stocks with exposure to AI were caught in the downdraft, also cast doubt on American AI dominance. Up until then, China had been seen as having fallen behind the US. 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They are, however, being careful. In online forums, users explain how to run DeepSeek-R1 on their own devices rather than online using DeepSeek's servers in China - a workaround they believe can protect their data from being shared surreptitiously."It's a good way to use the model without being concerned about what it's exfiltrating" to China, said Christopher Caen, CEO of Mill Pond Research. US-China rivalry DeepSeek's arrival also marked a turning point in the US-China AI rivalry, some experts say. "China was seen as playing catch-up in large language models until this point, with competitive models but always trailing the best western ones," policy analyst Wendy Chang of the Mercator Institute for China Studies told the BBC.A large language model (LLM) is a reasoning system trained to predict the next word in a given sentence or phrase. DeepSeek changed perceptions when it claimed to have achieved a leading model for a fraction of the computational resources and costs common among its American had spent $5bn (£3.7bn) in 2024 alone. By contrast, DeepSeek researchers said they had developed DeepSeek-R1 – which came out on top of OpenAI's o1 model across multiple benchmarks – for just $5.6m (£4.2m). "DeepSeek revealed the competitiveness of China's AI landscape to the world," Chang AI developers have managed to capitalize on this shift. AI-related deals and other announcements trumpeted by the Trump administration and major American tech companies are often framed as critical to staying ahead of AI czar David Sacks noted the technology would have "profound ramifications for both the economy and national security" when the administration unveiled its AI Action Plan last month."It's just very important that America continues to be the dominant power in AI," Sacks has never managed to quell concerns over the security implications of its Chinese US government has been assessing the company's links to Beijing, as first reported by Reuters in June.A senior US State Department official told the BBC they understood "DeepSeek has willingly provided, and will likely continue to provide, support to China's military and intelligence operations".DeepSeek did not respond to the BBC's request for comment but the company's privacy policy states that its servers are located in the People's Republic of China."When you access our services, your Personal Data may be processed and stored in our servers in the People's Republic of China," the policy says. "This may be a direct provision of your Personal Data to us or a transfer that we or a third-party make." A new approach? Earlier this week, OpenAI reignited talk about DeepSeek after releasing a pair of AI were the first free and open versions – meaning they can be downloaded and modified - released by the American AI giant in five years, well before ChatGPT ushered in the consumer AI era."You can draw a straight line from DeepSeek to what OpenAI announced this week," said d-Matrix's Sheth. "DeepSeek proved that smaller, more efficient models could still deliver impressive performance—and that changed the industry's mindset," Sheth told the BBC. "What we're seeing now is the next wave of that thinking: a shift toward right-sized models that are faster, cheaper, and ready to deploy at scale."But to others, for the major American players in AI, the old approach appears to be alive and days after releasing the free models, OpenAI unveiled GPT-5. In the run-up, the company said it significantly ramped up its computing capacity and AI infrastructure.A slew of announcements about new data centre clusters needed for AI has come as American tech companies have been competing for top-tier AI CEO Mark Zuckerberg has ploughed billions of dollars to fulfil his AI ambitions, and tried to lure staff from rivals with $100m pay fortunes of the tech giants seemed more tethered than ever to their commitment to AI spending, as evidenced by the series of blowout results revealed this past tech earnings shares of Nvidia, which plunged just after DeepSeek's arrival, have rebounded – touching new highs that have made it the world's most valuable company in history."The initial narrative has proven a bit of a red herring," said Mill Pond Research's are back to a future in which AI will ostensibly depend on more data centres, more chips, and more power. In other words, DeepSeek's shake-up of the status quo hasn't what about DeepSeek itself?"DeepSeek now faces challenges sustaining its momentum," said Marina Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology due in part to operational setbacks but also to intense competition from companies in the US and China, she notes that the company's next product, DeepSeek-R2, has reportedly been delayed. One reason? A shortage of high-end chips. Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.
The Guardian
9 hours ago
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Trump Media to broadcast GB News on US streaming platform Truth+
The Trump family media company has partnered with GB News to broadcast the British news channel on its US streaming platform, Truth+. Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), which operates the social media app Truth Social, the streaming platform Truth+, and the FinTech brand announced on Friday it will add GB News to its list of available channels, making it accessible to most countries globally, including the US. GB News, which has hosted rightwing commentators such as Nigel Farage, will be offered with the free basic package on Truth+, and can be accessed through several devices and platforms including iOS, Android, Web, Apple TV, Android TV, and Amazon Fire. The US president continues to criticise the mainstream media, filing lawsuits against giants such as Rupert Murdoch, as well as broadcasters and smaller newspapers. Earlier this year, Trump said the US media was full of 'radical-left monsters', who were guilty of 'illegal' reporting. More recently the White House communications director, Steven Cheung, said 'liberal media' is spreading 'fake news' in relation to reports, claiming that Trump's name appeared in US justice department files about Jeffrey Epstein. Trump Media's chief executive and chairperson, Devin Nunes, said in a statement: 'GB News is a terrific source for news, facts and commentary. 'By expanding its global reach, we aim to connect an enormous new, international audience to the network's unique reporting and opinion, while putting another dent in the global woke news monopoly.' Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Angelos Frangopoulos, GB News's chief executive, said: 'As the fearless champion of freedom of speech in Britain, it is important that we launch across the United States of America and globally on the Truth+ streaming platform.'
