Elon Musk's Neuralink hit the headlines this morning, after the entrepreneur announced that his firm had implanted a chip in the brain of a human for the first time. Having gained FDA approval, Musk announced that a device called'Telepathy' had been implanted and that the unnamed patient was recovering well. But after Neuralink's early trials saw 1,500 animals killed during rushed experiments, experts have raised serious concerned about the implant's safety. Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Dean Burnett, honorary research associate at Cardiff University, called the human trials'disconcerting and alarming.' 'The speed at which [Musk] has gone from having no involvement in neurosurgical implants to making massive global statements is disconcerting and alarming,' he said.

Near the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, a boxy robot zips along the rocky, cracked road. Snaking from side to side, the robot--a four-wheeled machine, around knee height--carries cargo and ammunition for Russian troops. Hovering above the road, tracking the movements of the robot, is a Ukrainian drone. The attack, which happened in early December and was claimed by the Ukrainian military's 110th Mechanized Brigade, is one of a small, but growing, number of incidents where unsophisticated robots have been used against other robots in Russia's war in Ukraine. Aerial drones have been used to surveil or attack ground robots, soldiers have attached weapons to land-based robots, and other small unmanned bots are being fitted with jamming technology to knock drones from the sky.

"Three U.S. service members were killed -- and many wounded -- during an unmanned aerial drone attack on our forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syria border," Mr. Biden said in a statement on Sunday. "While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq." Speaking later in Columbia, S.C., Mr. Biden said, "We lost three brave souls." The president then led a moment of silence, before adding, "We shall respond." Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III also held Iran-backed militias responsible for the continued attacks against U.S. troops in the region, but he did not identify which country the attack was launched from.

Elon Musk has left even his most ardent fans terrified after he revealed his tech start-up Neuralink has become the first to successfully implant a microchip into a human brain. The world's richest man said the operation took place on Sunday and'initial results show promising neuron spike detection'. The device - called'Telepathy' will'enable control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking', he said. But many of his 170 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, accused him of'mind control', creating'cyborgs', and even'playing God'. 'The negative potential of this makes me very uneasy,' one person wrote in a reply to his announcement.

The government said Tuesday it will provide around 45 billion ( 305 million) for a cutting-edge semiconductor project promoted by Japanese telecom giant NTT, major U.S. chipmaker Intel and its South Korean counterpart SK Hynix. The funding for the project to develop optical semiconductors that allow high-speed data processing with lower power consumption comes as Japan, in cooperation with the United States and South Korea, aims to gain a stronger footing in the semiconductor industry, amid China's growing influence in the sector. Semiconductor research and development has been boosted by the expansion of artificial intelligence and other digital technologies that require the processing of huge amounts of data. "We hope the (project), by enabling faster communications and realizing reduced power consumption, will be a game changer in the future," Ken Saito, minister of economy, trade and industry, told a news conference. NTT is pushing the development of optical semiconductors as a key technology for its Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN), an advanced platform featuring high-capacity communication with reduced time lag.

The deaths of three U.S. soldiers in a drone strike in Jordan -- the first-known American military fatalities from hostile fire in the widening Middle East crisis -- are likely to increase pressure on President Biden, who has tried to limit the American response in order to keep regional tensions from spreading further. The Biden administration said that the strike at a remote military outpost near the Syrian border -- which also injured 34 other service members -- was carried out by "radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq." As Mr. Biden warned that the United States would respond, American officials said that the deaths will require a different level of action from what the White House has ordered in the nearly four months since Israel's war with Hamas sparked broader turmoil in the Middle East. What remained unclear was whether Mr. Biden would strike targets inside Iran itself, as his Republican critics urged him to do, with one saying he would be a "coward" if he did not. A spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, said at a news conference on Monday that the militias "do not take orders" from Iran and act independently to oppose "any aggression and occupation."

The United States has vowed to take "all necessary actions" to defend American forces after a drone attack killed three U.S. troops in Jordan, while Qatar said it hoped U.S. retaliation would not damage regional security or undercut progress toward a new Gaza hostage-release deal. Sunday's attack by Iran-backed militants was the first deadly strike against U.S. troops since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October, and marks a major escalation in tensions that have engulfed the Middle East. White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said Monday the United States did not want a wider war with Iran or in the region, "but we got to do what we have to do."

Elon Musk's X has reactivated the ability to search its social network for musician Taylor Swift, after disabling queries for her name in response to a flood of explicit deepfake images. "Search has been re-enabled and we will continue to be vigilant for attempts to spread this content and will remove it wherever we find it," said Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X. Last week, explicit artificial intelligence-generated images of Swift amassed tens of millions of views on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. X's efforts to curb their spread included disabling the search. She wasn't alone in being a recent high-profile target of the technology: U.S. President Joe Biden was also the victim of a fake audio clip spreading online, created with the help of widely available AI tools.

SEAN HANNITY: American soldiers abroad are under attack. Three brave members of the U.S. Army, they were killed. And we had, what, over 40 more injured in a drone attack on a base in Jordan yesterday. One official is now saying that the drone evaded U.S. defenses because it was mistaken for an American drone. Well, that begs the question, what's going on with our military?

Air defenses failed to stop an attack on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan on Sunday that killed three American soldiers at least in part because the hostile drone approached its target at the same time an American drone was returning to the base, two U.S. officials said on Monday. The enemy drone was mistaken for an American surveillance drone returning to the remote resupply base, and air defenses were not immediately engaged, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss preliminary findings of a major cause of the episode. Two other drones that attacked other locations nearby in southeast Syria were shot down, they added. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the drone mix-up, now at the heart of an investigation by the military's Central Command into the deadly attack that has drawn vows of retaliation from President Biden, raised doubts about American military defenses in the Middle East, and begged anew questions about the administration's efforts to deter attacks by Iran-backed militias against merchant vessels, warships and military bases in the region. The attack on Sunday killed three U.S. Army Reserve soldiers, the first known American military fatalities from hostile fire in the turmoil spilling over from Israel's war with Hamas.