L4s Bot

Misinformation spreads in China on ‘civil war’ in Texas::Chinese social media cheers intensifying standoff between Texas and the White House over illegal migrants.

‘Betrayed’ SAP workers rebel against forced office return::The German software giant has changed direction, and more than 5,000 employees have signed an internal petition saying they feel ‘betrayed’.

Apple employees outnumbered customers at Vision Pro launch in San Francisco’s Union Square::Apple’s new Vision Pro headset drew a sparse but eager crowd to San Francisco’s Union Square on Friday, for pickups and demos.

‘Yellowstone’ star Lainey Wilson testifies AI using her voice was ‘gut punch’: ‘It is a personal violation’::Lainey Wilson spoke in front of the House Judiciary Committee Republicans on Friday asking for artists to have a “choice” when it comes to AI platforms using musicians’ voices.

Advertisers slashed spending on X by more than 55% ahead of this year’s Super Bowl::Top advertisers including NFL Enterprises, McDonald’s, and YouTube, spent $48.4 million on X ads in 2022 — last year, they spent just $21.1 million.

‘There is no such thing as a real picture,’ says Samsung exec.::Samsung’s head of product is now saying that every photo is fake. Samsung’s new Galaxy S24 phones increase the ways that the company uses AI to produce pictures.

Mark Zuckerberg made $29 billion this morning after Meta stock makes record surge::Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth increased by more than $28 billion between your morning coffee and your lunch break.

3 Huge Tech Companies Endorse Bill That Could Wipe Abortion Info From the Internet.::The misleadingly-named Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) just got a boost from Silicon Valley.

Google will no longer back up the Internet: Cached webpages are dead. Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web.::Google Search will no longer make site backups while crawling the web.

Ex-CIA programmer gets 40 years for passing spy secrets to WikiLeaks::In ‘most damaging disclosures of classified information in American history’.

AI Companies And Advocates Are Becoming More Cult-Like::How one writer’s trip to the annual tech conference CES left him with a sinking feeling about the future.

Kids Don’t Think Congress Has Their Best Interests In Mind With Their Grandstanding ‘Protect The Children’ Hearing::We’ve covered a few stories this week related to the Senate hearing on “kids safety” and there’s going to be a lot more in the coming weeks as those same Senators grandstand and yell about “protect...

Over 2 percent of the US’s electricity generation now goes to bitcoin::US government tracking the energy implications of booming bitcoin mining in US.

Unprofitable SF tech giant Okta lays off 400 workers, dozens in California::Okta, the San Francisco-based maker of identity and access tech, is laying off 400 workers, including 83 in California. CEO Todd McKinnon announced the news.

The EPA is proposing that ‘forever chemicals’ be considered hazardous substances::undefined

Tesla recalls 2.2 million cars — nearly all of its vehicles sold in the U.S. — over warning light issue::Warning lights on the Tesla vehicles are hard to read, raising the risk of a crash, according to traffic safety regulators.

FDA says 561 deaths tied to recalled Philips sleep apnea machines::Update from the Food and Drug Agency comes days after Philips said it would stop selling the devices in the U.S.

Musk says Tesla will hold shareholder vote ‘immediately’ to move company’s incorporation to Texas::Billionaire Elon Musk justified the decision on the results of an unscientific poll run on his X account a day earlier.

Couple suing Google Maps after it sent them to a notorious crime hotspot where they were brutally attacked and robbed at gunpoint::A Los Angeles couple filed a lawsuit against Google Maps for allegedly navigating them to a notorious South African crime neighborhood where tourists are left ‘injured, maimed or dead.’

Amazon is more profitable than ever after a year of mass layoffs::The tech giant posted the largest quarterly operating income in its history on the back of cost-cutting and faster revenue growth in key divisions.

Zoom is cutting about 150 jobs, or close to 2% of its workforce::Zoom on Thursday confirmed that it’s cutting about 2% of its workforce, becoming the latest tech company to announce layoffs.

Snap is recalling and refunding every drone it ever sold::Snap is recalling every one of its Pixy drones because their batteries pose a fire hazard. Yes, the entire drone is being recalled, not just the removable battery. Snap discontinued the drone just months after release.

Mark Zuckerberg explained how Meta will crush Google and Microsoft at AI—and Meta warned it could cost more than $30 billion a year::The Facebook cofounder said the vast trove of photos and videos shared by users on Meta’s various services is larger than the web content crawled by search engines like those of Google and...

Exploring Reddit’s third-party app environment 7 months after the APIcalypse::Apollo dev: “I don’t believe Reddit’s leadership… cares about developers anymore.”

Zuckerberg to Get $700 Million a Year From Meta’s New Dividend::Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg stands to receive a payout of about $700 million a year from the social media giant’s first-ever dividend for investors.

Amazon could soon be on the hook for safety of third-party products it sells and ships — Government order could classify it as a distributor, potentially exposing it to more legal claims::undefined

EBay will pay $59 million settlement over pill presses sold on the site — the kind used to make counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl::The kind used to make counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl.

Apple’s Vision Pro battery pack is hiding the final boss of Lightning cables::The Vision Pro’s battery connector is removable once you press the eject button, and it uses a 12-pin connector that looks like a wider version of a Lightning cable.

U.S. Corporations Are Openly Trying to Destroy Core Public Institutions. We Should All Be Worried | Trader Joe’s, SpaceX, and Meta are arguing in lawsuits that government agencies protecting worker…::Trader Joe’s, SpaceX, and Meta are arguing in lawsuits that government agencies protecting workers and consumers—the NLRB...

TikTok sounds go silent as songs disappear from app::Videos across the platform have lost their audio in dramatic dispute

Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ will start cracking down on password sharing | CNN Business::Disney is banning password sharing on its streaming services, following in the footsteps of competitor Netflix.

Elon Musk’s $56bn Tesla pay package is too much, judge rules::Judge ruled his pay – six times larger than the combined pay of the 200 highest-paid executives in 2021 – was set inappropriately

Comcast reluctantly agrees to stop its misleading “10G Network” claims | Comcast said it will drop “Xfinity 10G Network” brand name after losing appeal.::Comcast said it will drop “Xfinity 10G Network” brand name after losing appeal.

The uncomfortable truth about AI’s impact on the workforce is playing out inside the big AI companies themselves::Alphabet and Microsoft are investing big in AI. But that’s creating a murky future for many tech employees.

Mark Zuckerberg says sorry to families of children who committed suicide — after rejecting suggestion to set up a compensation fund to help the families get counseling::CEOs of Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord, and X testified at hearing on child safety.

Zuckerberg seeks to place responsibility onto Apple and Google for underage social media use::Apple and Google, not social media companies, should be responsible for checking users’ ages to ensure they are not underage, Zuckerberg told lawmakers, suggesting it would be “trivial” for Congress to design legislation...

Chinese hackers are determined to ‘wreak havoc’ on US critical infrastructure, FBI director warns::FBI Director Chris Wray has told House lawmakers that Chinese government hackers are busily targeting critical infrastructure inside the United States, including water treatment plants, the electrical grid and transportation...

GM Reverses All-In EV Strategy to Bring Back Plug-In Hybrids::The EV craze is butting up against limited demand, and it’s forcing General Motors to bring back hybrids in an almost total about-face.

Apple refuses to relax its iron grip on iPhones in Europe::As its walled garden crumbles, Apple grudgingly allows EU users to sideload applications. Will regulators take stiffer action, and what about the US?

Ars Technica used in malware campaign with never-before-seen obfuscation — Buried in URL was a string of characters that appeared to be random, but were actually a payload::Vimeo also used by legitimate user who posted booby-trapped content.

AMD’s new CPU hits 132fps in Fortnite without a graphics card::Also get 49fps in BG3, 119fps in CS2, and 41fps in Cyberpunk 2077 using the new AMD Ryzen 8700G, all without the need for an extra CPU cooler.

Japan government accepts it’s no longer the ’90s, stops requiring floppy disks::Government amends 34 ordinances to no longer require diskettes.

Jack Dorsey’s Block lays off ‘large number’ of staffers, adding to wave of tech industry cuts::Dorsey told staff in a Tuesday memo that a “large number” of Block employees, including those at Cash App and Square, were being laid off.

23andMe’s fall from $6 billion to nearly $0 — a valuation collapse of 98% from its peak in 2021::undefined

UK law that could ban Apple security updates worldwide is an unprecedented overreach::Proposed amendments to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) which could ban Apple security updates worldwide are an “unprecedented overreach,”…

Taylor Swift AI images prompt US bill to tackle nonconsensual, sexual deepfakes::Bipartisan measure introduced in the US senate will allow victims in ‘digital forgeries’ to seek civil penalty against perpetrators

PayPal to Cut Around2,500 Jobs as Rivals Snag MarketShare::PayPal Holdings Inc. will reduce its workforce by about 9% as Chief Executive Officer Alex Chriss, who took over in September, grapples with rising competition, profit pressures and a raft of analyst downgrades.

Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not::There’s a lot of pressure on the new Apple Vision Pro headset, which starts at $3,499 and marks the beginning of something called “spatial computing.” The ambition is enormous, but the Vision Pro also represents a series of really big tradeoffs.