James Farrell
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Waymo changes course from its self-driving truck ambitions to focus on ride-hailing
Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo LLC announced today that it’s putting the brakes on autonomous truck operations and will now focus its efforts on the self-driving ride-hailing part of the business. Waymo Via, the company’s trucking division, was launched six years ago. Until recently, it has been testing its Class 8 heavy-duty trucks, operated by Waymo Driver, ...
TikTok announces new text and e-commerce features amid social media battle to become meta
The popular Chinese-owned video streaming app TikTok today announced that it will introduce a text-only feature, now competing with Elon Musk’s newly named X and Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads. TikTok said it’s currently “expanding the boundaries of content creation,” which in short means providing a feature that will look a lot like ...
Stanford researchers sound alarm on Mastodon’s significant child sexual abuse material problem
Researchers at Stanford’s Internet Observatory released a paper today revealing some worrying insights concerning the social media platform Mastodon, which they say is rife with child sexual abuse material, known as CSAM. The researchers said in the study that the issue has become a big problem on decentralized social networks, more so than centralized networks ...
Apple warns it will pull popular apps from UK if surveillance law changes as planned
Apple Inc. warned today that if British surveillance laws change with the upcoming Online Safety Bill, it might have no choice but to pull iMessage and FaceTime from the country. Under the new bill, there will be significant changes to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. The amendment will give the British Home Office the power ...
Microsoft and Activision agree to a new deadline as UK approval still not certain
The drama of the biggest tech acquisition of all time seemingly won’t end, with Microsoft Corp. and Activision Blizzard Inc. today announcing they’ve agreed on a new deadline of Oct. 18 to finalize their mammoth $69 billion transaction. “Given global regulatory approvals and the companies’ confidence that CMA now recognizes there are remedies available to ...
Pay up! Thousands of authors tell AI leaders they want to be paid when their work is used
Around 8,500 authors, many of them household names, have signed an open letter to leaders in the generative artificial intelligence industry telling them either to compensate them for their work or to leave it alone. The list of names in the letter includes award-winning authors, arguably the most famous writers in the world today. That ...
UK court gives Microsoft more time to negotiate with CMA over $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition
The U.K.’s Competition Appeal Tribunal today agreed to extend Microsoft Corp.’s appeal to buy the gaming giant Activision Blizzard Inc. after the acquisition was blocked by the U.K.’s competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, citing concerns over Microsoft’s potential grip on the cloud gaming market. Both Microsoft and the CMA had asked ...
US university professors cry foul on Texas’ ‘unconstitutional’ TikTok ban
A free speech group of professors at New York’s Columbia University has sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott and others for the state’s TikTok ban on official devices, saying that the ban is unconstitutional under the First Amendment and impinges on academic freedom. In December 2022, Texas joined other states in banning the app on devices ...
FTC is still trying to kill Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal that appeals court ruling blessed
The Federal Trade Commission is taking its fight into the 12th round in its attempt to block Microsoft Corp’s pending $68.7 billion acquisition of the gaming giant Activision Blizzard Inc. The agency filed an appeal today after Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley denied its request for a preliminary injunction which would have put the brakes on ...
US senators sound slightly overwhelmed at first-ever classified briefing on artificial intelligence
U.S. senators today discussed the rise of artificial intelligence at what was the first-ever briefing on the technology, and most of them sounded somewhat concerned about the future. The senators listened to experts on the matter of AI from a list of experts and officials, including Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Deputy Secretary of ...