Category: Tech News

DOE Pulls Plug on Chinese-Owned Company’s Grant Application Months After Alarm Raised

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was never quite clear on why it allowed a Texas subsidiary of a Chinese-owned battery manufacturer to qualify as a grant applicant, even after the company’s links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were revealed during the department’s own vetting process. The DOE was equally opaque in curtly announcing…


Microsoft Integrating AI ‘Personal Assistant’ Into Windows 11

Microsoft is adding its centralized AI-assisted feature Copilot to Windows 11, the company announced on May 22. In a blog post, Panos Panay, Microsoft’s chief product officer, said the new chatbot—which like Chat GPT-4 is powered by artificial intelligence that uses large language models (LLMs)—will help assist users to complete complex tasks. Such tasks will…


Elon Musk Signals Twitter’s Headquarters May Not Stay in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO—Twitter might not keep its headquarters in San Francisco forever, its owner Elon Musk signaled Tuesday. Speaking virtually at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London, Musk gave a noncommittal answer to an interviewer’s question about whether the company will stay in the California city. San Francisco officials announced last week they…


FTC Warning: Americans’ Fingerprints and Eye Scans May Be Subject to Data Manipulation

Biometric information like facial recognition, fingerprints, and voice and eye scans being collected by businesses can be hacked and manipulated, with the threat amplified following the proliferation of artificial intelligence, said a recent warning by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In a May 18 policy statement (pdf), the FTC said that consumers are facing…


Bill Gates Says Personal AI Agents Could Change Consumer Behavior, Impact Retail Giants Including Amazon

Artificial intelligence agents could revolutionize the way customers shop and search online, potentially rendering retail giants such as Amazon useless, according to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Gates made the comments at the AI Forward 2023 event in San Francisco on May 22. The billionaire said he believes the current race to win in the artificial intelligence…


WhatsApp Allows Users to Edit Messages

WhatsApp has granted users one of its most awaited features—the ability to edit messages. “For the moments when you make a mistake or simply change your mind, you can now edit your sent messages on WhatsApp,” the Meta Platforms Inc-owned messaging app said in a blog post on Monday. With the feature rolling out globally…


Newly Appointed Twitter CEO Responds to Meta’s Plan to Launch Clone Rival

Newly appointed Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino shared her first response to the planned Twitter clone app reportedly in development at Meta that will be integrated with Instagram. “Game on!” Yaccarino said in a May 22 tweet while responding to an article about Instagram developing a Twitter clone. The news was first reported by Moneycontrol. “We’re…


Leaked Letter Adds to Debate Over EncroChat Evidence

A leaked letter from a French magistrate to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has emerged as EncroChat campaigners continue to push for tests to be carried out to prove their claim the encrypted network was hacked in a “live intercept” operation, which would make the Encrochat dialogues inadmissible in a UK court. Between March 2020 and…


Instagram Back Up After Global Outage Affecting Thousands of Users

Meta Platform Inc.’s Instagram was back up for most users, the company said on Sunday, after a technical issue that disrupted services to thousands of people had been resolved. “Earlier today, a technical issue caused some people to have trouble accessing Instagram. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted,”…


In the ‘Wild West’ of AI Health Care, These 4 Things Could Go Very Wrong

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making headlines, and the reviews are mixed. Though the United States leads the world in AI investment, Americans remain skeptical. According to a global survey (pdf) by Ipsos, “Only 35 percent of sampled Americans agreed that products and services using AI had more benefits than drawbacks.” Among surveyed countries, America had…