Tag Archives: technology

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 …

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 …

Axios reports: Apple filed an appeal Tuesday to the International Trade Commission’s decision to ban U.S. sales of Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 models. The emergency request came after the U.S. trade representative’s office said in a statement that it has declined to overturn the ban, which has now gone into effect. Masimo, a medical device company, claims …

Bloomberg News reports: Hyperloop One, the futuristic transportation company building tube-encased lines to zip passengers and freight from city to city at airplane-like speeds, is shutting down. The company had captured the public’s imagination since its founding in 2014, a year after Elon Musk released a white paper outlining a vision for hyperloop technology. The concept was a tantalizing promise …

CNET reports: Apple will pause sales of its Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches in the US this month as the result of an ongoing legal battle with health tech company Masimo. The US International Trade Commission, the federal agency that handles trade-related mandates, previously issued an order that would prohibit Apple from importing the Series 9 and …

Ars Technica reports: AI face detection now counts among the tools that could be used to help adult sites effectively estimate UK user ages and block minors from accessing pornography, the UK’s Office of Communications said in a press release on Tuesday. The only foreseeable problem, Ofcom noted: There’s little evidence that the AI method of age estimation will be …

Axios reports: A factory planning to pump out 10,000 two-legged robots a year is taking shape in Salem, Oregon — the better to help Amazon and other giant companies with dangerous hauling, lifting and moving. Agility Robotics says that its RoboFab manufacturing facility will be the first to mass-produce humanoid robots, which could be nimbler and more versatile than their …

Engadget reports: The nuclear research hub Idaho National Laboratory (INL) confirmed that it fell victim to a data breach on Tuesday. SiegedSec, a group of self-proclaimed “gay furry hackers,” took responsibility for the attack and claimed they accessed sensitive employee data like social security numbers, home addresses and more. “We’re willing to make a deal with INL. If they research …

Fast Company reports: The traffic signal on North Las Vegas’s North Commerce Street had been red for at least 29 seconds, but the Dodge Challenger did not slow down. Instead, it flew through the intersection with Cheyenne Avenue at 103 mph, almost three times the 35 mph speed limit. Carnage ensued. The crash that occurred on January 29, 2022, was …

CNN reports: The Starship system made it much further into flight than the first attempt in April, but ultimately ended in another explosion. The rocket and spacecraft safely lifted off the pad, with the Super Heavy booster igniting all 33 of its engines. During the last attempt, multiple engines shut down prematurely. Then, the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft …

The Hill reports: Tech scholars and scam victims told lawmakers artificial intelligence (AI) is driving more sophisticated scams during a Senate hearing Thursday morning. Witness Gary Schildhorn testified about his experience being scammed. The scammer used AI to mimic his son’s voice. The scammer, posing as an attorney, told Schildhorn his son had been driving while drunk, caused a car …

The BBC reports: A man has been crushed to death by a robot in South Korea after it failed to differentiate him from the boxes of food it was handling, reports say. The incident occurred when the man, a robotics company employee in his 40s, was inspecting the robot. The robotic arm, confusing the man for a box of vegetables, …

NBC News reports: President Joe Biden signed a wide-ranging executive order on artificial intelligence Monday, setting the stage for some industry regulations and funding for the U.S. government to further invest in the technology. The order is broad, and its focuses range from civil rights and industry regulations to a government hiring spree. In a media call previewing the order …

The Digital Bits reports: The Digital Bits has learned from industry sources—and we’ve confirmed it with multiple sources now—that Best Buy plans to exit the physical media business for good next year, possibly as soon as the end of Q1 2024. This includes not just their in-store Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD sales, which the retailer has been gradually …

Engadget reports: Since 2012, Yelp has caught nearly 5,000 businesses engaging in shady tactics, like paying customers for favorable ratings or hiring people to write phony reviews. Now, the company has a new tool to help people — and maybe the feds — track businesses that have tried to manipulate their standing on the review platform. Yelp is releasing a …

The New York Daily News reports: Google is being sued by the family of a North Carolina man who drowned after he drove off a collapsed bridge while following outdated directions from the Maps app. Philip Paxson was driving home from his daughter’s birthday party on Sept. 30, 2022 when his car plunged into Snow Creek in Hickory — about …

The Associated Press reports: Apple released a significant security update for iPhones and iPads Thursday to patch newly discovered security vulnerabilities in the devices’ system software. The issue was discovered by researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, who said the software flaw was being “actively exploited” to deliver commercial spyware called Pegasus developed and sold by the Israeli …