Technology

The New York Times reports: Unlike Bill Gates, who has deployed his fortune in an effort to improve health care across Africa, or Walmart’s Walton family, which has spurred change in the American education system, Mr. Musk’s philanthropy has been haphazard and largely self-serving — making him eligible for enormous tax breaks and helping his businesses. Since 2020, he has …

Mint reports: Elon Musk has revealed that long-form videos will soon be accessible on smart television sets through the social network X. The announcement comes in the wake of reports by Fortune magazine stating that the platform is gearing up to launch a TV app next week for Amazon and Samsung users. Responding to a user’s inquiry on X, Musk …

The Washington Post reports: Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid. A major factor behind the skyrocketing demand is the rapid innovation in artificial intelligence, which is …

The Daily Mail reports: Meta’s Facebook, Threads, Messenger and Instagram are down worldwide, leaving thousands of users unable to access the social media platforms. The issues appeared around 10:20am ET and are impacting both social media sites’ apps and website. Rather than showing a skeleton version of the site, Facebook will automatically kick you out. An error message saying that …

Bloomberg News reports: Apple Inc. is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company. Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff …

The Associated Press reports: Wendy’s is looking to test having the prices of its menu items fluctuate throughout the day based on demand, implementing a strategy that has already taken hold with ride-sharing companies and ticket sellers. During a conference call earlier this month, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said that the Dublin, Ohio-based burger chain will start testing dynamic pricing, …

Bloomberg News reports: “Based on our initial review, we believe that the outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” an AT&T spokesman said in a statement. AT&T said all wireless service was restored Thursday afternoon, capping a day of frustration that began in the …

Gizmodo reports: Have you seen a claim on social media that Google is “sunsetting” Gmail this coming August? What appears to be a screenshot from an official Google announcement has gone viral on X, but it’s completely fake. “We are reaching out to share an important update about Gmail. After years of connecting millions worldwide, enabling seamless communication, and fostering …

NBC News reports: AT&T’s network suffered a widespread outages across the country Thursday morning with cellular service and internet down, according to the tracking site Downdetector. Some Verizon and T-Mobile customers also reported outages, though theirs appeared to be less widespread than AT&T. It’s not clear what triggered the service disruption. AT&T acknowledged the issue Thursday morning saying: “Some of …

The Associated Press reports: Stuck in a dating app loop with no date in sight? A lawsuit against Match Group claims that is by design. Tinder, Hinge and other Match dating apps are filled with addictive features that encourage “compulsive” use, the proposed class-action lawsuit claims. The lawsuit filed in federal court in the Northern District of California on Wednesday …

Axios reports: Federal regulators are poised to ban the impersonation of anyone, aiming to thwart scams in an AI-driven world. An imminent onslaught of deepfake video and audio is creating a sense of urgency to protect consumers. The FTC announced Thursday that it’s proposing to modify a rule that already prevents the impersonation of government and businesses to include the …

Reuters reports: U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Monday said human drivers must pay attention at all times after videos emerged of people driving Teslas while wearing what appeared to be Apple’s recently released Vision Pro headset. Buttigieg responded on X to a video that had more than 24 million views of a Tesla driver who appeared to be gesturing …

From the Energy Department: Electricity demand associated with U.S. cryptocurrency mining operations in the United States has grown very rapidly over the last several years. Our preliminary estimates suggest that annual electricity use from cryptocurrency mining probably represents from 0.6% to 2.3% of U.S. electricity consumption. This additional electricity use has drawn the attention of policymakers and grid planners concerned …

CNBC reports: Amazon on Thursday announced a new artificial intelligence assistant for shopping called Rufus. The tool is designed to help users search and shop for products. Shoppers type or speak a question into the search bar in Amazon’s mobile app and a chat window will appear at the bottom of their screen. Users can ask conversational questions such as, …

Bloomberg News reports: Elon Musk said that the first human patient has received a brain implant from his startup Neuralink Corp., a significant step forward for the company that aims to one day let humans control computers with their minds. Neuralink’s brain implant aims to help people with traumatic injuries operate computers using only their thoughts. On X, Musk wrote …

Via press release from Microsoft: The Microsoft security team detected a nation-state attack on our corporate systems on January 12, 2024, and immediately activated our response process to investigate, disrupt malicious activity, mitigate the attack, and deny the threat actor further access. Microsoft has identified the threat actor as Midnight Blizzard, the Russian state-sponsored actor also known as Nobelium. As …

Bloomberg News reports: Artificial intelligence will change how US courts do business, though human judges will be around “for a while” yet, Chief Justice John Roberts said. AI tools will change how judges do their jobs and how they understand “the role that AI plays in the cases that come before them,” Roberts said in his end-of-year report. There’s been …

Business Insider reports: On Thursday, Google agreed to settle a $5 billion class-action privacy lawsuit alleging that it spied on people who used the “incognito” mode in its Chrome browser to track their internet use. The lawsuit filed in 2020 claimed Google misled users into believing that it wouldn’t track their internet activities while using incognito mode. The suit argued …

The Washington Post reports: A day after Apple warned independent Indian journalists and opposition party politicians in October that government hackers may have tried to break into their iPhones, officials under Prime Minister Narendra Modi promptly took action — against Apple. Officials from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) publicly questioned whether the Silicon Valley company’s internal threat algorithms were …

Yahoo Finance reports: Apple can for now resume sales of its flagship smartwatches, after a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday paused a government commission’s import ban on the devices imposed in a patent dispute over its medical monitoring technology. The tech giant had filed an emergency request asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to halt an …